Why did I just randomly start crying?

Just the love, empathy, closeness coming out. It was a highly spiritual moment where you reached out to each other!

Realization. You have come to learn what he has known all a long that we are not permanent beings. And you rejoiced in that connection.

My eyes are really watery. Perhaps you have the same condition I do? Was there emotion to go along with the tears?

Are you still living at home and might soon be moving out and living on your own? Maybe it was the sense that you are growing up and that the relationship between you and your parents will be entering a new phase.

Did you talk to him about it?

It sounds like you have a swell, loving family, and you were feeling that fortunate aspect of your life.
How special!

Because there was a toxic amount of carbon monoxide in the room?

Because your mom was chopping onions?

I feel like that sometimes when I see an expression in my childrens eyes that I haven’t seen since their childhood days. Sometimes it is a deja vu moment or reliving a precise moment from the past that you both remember exactly at the same time. My daughter and I will sometimes walk somewhere and we will turn to each other and say something seems familiar. Then one of us would mention that the weather reminds us of a certain day and it would be exactly what the other one was thinking at that very moment.

Just the other day, I dropped some scramble eggs on the floor and as I looked down and across the room my husband happened to look at me and we both thought the same thing. Our dog would’ve gladly gobbled it up. He looked at me and said he was thinking the same thing. We each recognized the hurt look on our faces just from the egg dropping to the floor. It comes from years of recognizing what different expressions mean on our loved ones faces.

Also on my recent trip to visit my son, we went to a tower and my husband saw my eyes swell and asked me what was it for. It was because I saw my son expression when he was sight seeing with us and he was so proud to show me around and it brought back all the memories of him as a child and how proud he would be to show me what he had learned or accomplished or simply to share things he enjoyed doing. The pure joy on his face was reward enough. I think we just get more sentimental as we age or learn to take the time to appreciate what we have because time seems shorter.

@Pandora that’s just it, a code of communication that needs no words, a sense of knowing, a connection of the minds, a life so tightly shared that there is no need for words. @pleiades put it brilliantly!

@Jonesn4burgers I agree with the observation! But I have the exact opposite family growing up, and I know I could still have that moment with the broken family on a 1 on 1 basis. (just food for thought, not against your view at all!)

Maybe too personal a question but, how old are you?

I went to the doctor a few years ago and complained that I seemed to get over emotional in certain situations, Im 40 next year, and came to the realisation that its perfectly normal to feel intense empathy, especially if you’ve experienced the situation that caused the empathy to emerge.

At the time I went to see the doctor I was really confused, I’m male, and growing up tends to make you conform to group ideals, which for a bloke include, not getting emotional, and getting angry instead of upset.

Anyhoo, personally, I think its makes you a better person.
I often wonder whether not coming to this realisation in mid-life causes people to have a ‘mid-life’ crisis and buy a porche?