re: What is the most emotional event you've been part of or witnessed?

It will almost assuredly be when my son is born a couple of months from now.

Catalina Wine Mixer

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What is the most emotional event you've been part of or witnessed?

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Pallbearer for my murdered friend's funeral. Hearing her parents wail like gut-shot animals as they shut the casket. I'd never heard pain like that.

My Father died suddenly from a heart-attack when I was 21 and he was 46. I cried a lot in the days leading up to the funeral but when they did the 21 gun salute at his funeral I experienced uncontrollable sobbing.

The last year of my life. Amazing.

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Hearing her parents wail like gut-shot animals as they shut the casket. I'd never heard pain like that.

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My buddies funeral (suicide) that I mentioned. At one point the family asked us all to step out. He was a popular dude there were hundreds packed in a church for about 150. His dad asked for us to give immediate family a moment. We of course couldn't oblige quickly enough. The look on his face!! So exhausted. So broken. He was probably 45 at the time and his life was ruined. Forever ruined. No matter where he goes or what good happens to him it will be overshadowed. I'm sure he's had grand babies by now. EVERYTHING in your life being bittersweet must get pretty fricking old.

We couldn't stop hugging him. I think that was part of what overwhelmed him at the moment. He and his family just needed a few minutes to lose it. They couldn't with us in there. There was literally a person hugging the parents every minute.

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I don't think that there is anything harder on a couple than not being able to conceive, outside of losing a child

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Fertility treatments are brutal. Obviously for the woman and her body, but they are definitely emotionally draining for both partners. The constant let down month after month starts to take a huge toll. You are paying so much money, and I know it isn't all about the money, and investing so much time and energy into it all that some days it just seems easier to give up. But then you don't and you keep on, and like many of you said finally get what you dreamed off. I can imagine holding your baby for the first time must be so fricking awesome.

What makes it even harder is all around you are people with unwanted pregnancies and stories of child abuse and neglect. It's just sad.

Man, I was a volunteer fireman for 6 years and had a slightly similar experience. 4 teens got t-boned by an 18 wheeler after running a stop sign. Used the jaws of life to open up the car like a can of sardines to pull out 2 dead bodies (one of which I knew), and the other 2 that miraculously survived. That memory is seared into me forever.

Also had another call at 2am for an extracation by paramedics. Another accident, driver was dead, but needed help getting him out. Again, used the jaws, got him out, and I noticed that the radio in the truck was still playing...a song called Counting Blue Cars, in which one of the main lines is "Tell me all your thoughts on God, 'Cause I'd really like to meet her"....That too is seared into my brain.

Probably 9/11

I was only in 3rd grade but I just remember every single adult just sobbing. Especially my mom who lost some friends who she worked with that day.

Was almost like an out of body experience for the entire day. I remember getting home and literally every single TV channel was just the news. ESPN, MTV, all of them

Eta: I still remember listening to the radio in my dad's car when he dropped me and my sister off at school that day as the second tower was falling. The broadcaster was just shrieking