Yesterday I just felt like a good cry. A sure-fire way to accomplish this, for me, would be to pick out a movie with an animal in it – preferably a dog – that dies or does something completely heroic. So, last night, I watched Marley & Me, which is about a couple that get a dog after they just got married. At first it was the husband’s way of postponing having children, but of course he quickly gets attached. The dog is there at every event in the couple’s lives. He’s there when the wife has a miscarriage; he’s there when the first child is born, when the husband gets a promotion, when the second child is born and the third. He’s there when the family moves when the husband hits a mid-life crisis and gets another job. He’s not a very obedient dog and causes a lot of stress and destruction, but he’s always there. The dog slowly gets old and the inevitable is getting nearer. The story is not all-that (euphemism), but a certain tear-jerker.
And then there’s that movie (based on a true story) with Richard Gere, Hachiko: A Dog’s Story. About a dog that, when his master dies, keeps waiting at the spot at the train station where he had been waiting at when his master would come home from work and eventually dies there.
Or War Horse. Or that heart-warming clip with that lion. Or the HBO documentary A Nation Under Dog. Or this story…
I often wonder why these types of stories always manage to get me teary-eyed (which is also a euphemism for crying my eyeballs out). It’s almost pavlovian. However, I can’t come up with any reasonable explanation for it. Maybe it’s because they’re often innocent? Or that they’re loyal to the bone? Or that they love you without wanting anything in return? Is it because they always forgive you?
If you have a take on this, I would really like to read your thoughts!
