Good Saturday morning.

What makes you cry?


Sad music or a romantic song? Unchained Melody makes me cry because it reminds me of the time Mama and I were discussing nursing and/or personal care homes for Daddy. Whispering Hope, The Garden of Prayer, Mama's favorite hymns, put that can't-breath-knot-in-my-chest feeling that means I'm about to cry. Amazing Grace makes me tear up every time because Daddy loved that hymn.

Patriotic music like The Star Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful, or the site of Flags waving make me proud and shivery. (more tears likely)

Music moves me whether sung or played by a band or orchestra, or even a single musician. I'm easy!

I don't watch movies I know will be sad. I really can't handle them.

Show me a cute baby or a dog and I tear up.

When I think about my parents I laugh at some memories, but sentimental memories do me in. My eyes water and my nose runs.

Give me a book or a movie about kids finding parents or a childless couple adopting or a long- wished- for pregnancy and I grab the tissues. Angel movies, movies about a person who dies but revives, you know, a character is in tears and then...a second chance!

Writing a sad scene makes me water my keyboard. This scene from my next book, Haunting Refrain, gets to me, too.

Sarah had been only ten when his father died from a heart attack. William had stood alone at the gravesite on the July day the minister said kind words over the open grave. Her parents had stood on both sides of the seventeen –year-old, who hadn’t shed a tear during the entire time. They had been his family at the funeral home as his father’s colleagues paid their respects. William had been surprised to see some of his teachers and fellow students. No one commented on his mother’s absence. Not once had Sarah been in William’s house. The housekeeper had stayed at the house to tend to his mother.



A short teaser from FOREVER LOVE.

When the slave drums beat at night I think about becoming Devon's woman. I know good women do not find the mating pleasurable, but I hear the slave women talk about it. I know I will love it with my Devon. I dream about how it will be and I ache deep inside. Would it be worth eternal damnation if we did not wait? I should not write these words, but I have no one with whom to share my wicked thoughts.

Lou


Sabrina dozed in the chair where she’d read for hours. Her skin tingled as she pictured the bronzed body of the man chopping wood. Shirtless and sweating, he looked like a primitive as his muscles flexed. Her nipples tightened at the thought of wrapping herself around him.

The light feeling in her head gave way to longing. She’d never felt this soul-deep need. What he made her feel was more than caring. She needed to find herself, to understand what plagued her, and she knew only Devon could give it to her. Which made no sense to Sabrina. She didn’t know anyone named Devon. Hell, she knew the man better from Lou's writing than she did most people who inhabited her life.


What makes you cry?

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16 comments

  1. Pamela Varnado // June 4, 2011 at 12:47 PM  

    Good morning, Mary.
    I totally understand your motivation for not watching sad movies. My husband loves We Were Soldiers, a film with Mel Gibson. Whenever he always asks me to watch it with him, I can't. It's too sad.

    I cried when I read some of your scenes from Haunting Refrain. The emotion is so real. I could tell you were going through a rough time. It's a wonderful story and I can't wait to buy it on Amazon.

  2. Mary Marvella // June 4, 2011 at 1:19 PM  

    Thank you, Pam! I cried, too!

  3. Autumn Jordon // June 4, 2011 at 1:50 PM  

    Ah, Mary. That is moving.

    Recalling one of the scenes I wrote, brings tears to my now. I really do need to revisit that story.

    I get teary eyed at the most stupid things though. Bambi's mother dying. It's a cartoon video, but it grabs my heart strings everytime the grandkids and I watch it. They wonder why I fast forward pass that scene.

  4. Mary Marvella // June 4, 2011 at 2:41 PM  

    My daughter and I cry at that scene, too and she's 38.

    She cried when Snoopy left Charlie Brown to go his former owner because the kid was sick and when the bad creatures hurt the lion in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

  5. Mary Ricksen // June 4, 2011 at 4:11 PM  

    Hi everyone! I am a sap too! I cry over old lassie movies. When I think of the Movie Old Yeller! I can still cry over him having to kill his rabid dog. I cry over commercials where kids are hungry. I got it all!
    Seriously though, I love those of us with tender hearts. My kinda people for sure. That's why we love you Mary!! And when your story can make someone cry. Wow...

  6. Mary Marvella // June 4, 2011 at 4:25 PM  

    Mary R. I am not surprised you are a sentimental personal!

  7. Beth Trissel // June 4, 2011 at 6:32 PM  

    Very moving, Mary. I totally understand too.

  8. J.L. Murphey // June 4, 2011 at 6:59 PM  

    Mary, I've done my share of crying of late in real life (see my blog), watching movies (Joy Luck Club), in music (Holes in the Floor of Heaven).

    In writing, I pull from personal experiences just like you do.

  9. Mary Marvella // June 4, 2011 at 7:29 PM  

    Joanne, I know you've done your share of everything. Somehow you come out on top!

  10. Scarlet Pumpernickel // June 4, 2011 at 9:38 PM  

    Most of the time I'm just a sap and cry at the least provacation. I cry if I talk about my mom, she died in '69, on dear, there are the tears. I cry at sad movies and refuse to watch if I know ahead of time. Book with emotional parts do me in. I don't read the literary acknowledged works because it is a pre-requisite that someboy has to die. No HEA in those books. Bummer. I just don't read them. Give me a good romance with the sad part in the beginning or middle and a HEA. Mary, your stories are emotionally packed roller coaster rides and I do enjoy them.

  11. Mary Marvella // June 4, 2011 at 9:44 PM  

    Thanks, Scarlet! I do love writing emotional scenes! Love scenes, too.

  12. Bianca Swan // June 4, 2011 at 10:34 PM  

    If I watch Legends of the Fall or Last of the Mohicans, a box of tissues is necessary. You write with such emotion, Mary, that I'm envious!

  13. Mary Marvella // June 5, 2011 at 2:15 AM  

    Thanks, Bianca, You have a way with words that is pure poetry!

  14. Josie // June 5, 2011 at 9:32 AM  

    Mary M,
    Thanks for your beautiful excerpts. Like Autumn, I cry at the silliest things, also. Any of the sad Disney cartoons always get to me.

  15. Mary Marvella // June 5, 2011 at 2:08 PM  

    Happy Sunday, Joanne. Another crier!

  16. Judith Keim // June 6, 2011 at 7:36 AM  

    Mary, you're book sounds so wonderful! What makes me cry? Sometimes the simplest thing. For sure, I can never watch a parade! My mother used to embarrass me at parades when I was a small child. Now, I watch them, as she did, with tears streaming down my face!