Here are a few things that I have heard or read that really hit home for me. They cause that pressure in my chest, and often bring tears to my eyes. Some things I think about multiple times daily.
"...and one day you catch yourself wishing the person(s) you loved had never existed, so you'd be spared your pain."-Batman Begins
I have a child I never new about, and a child from my previous marriage.(See below). I longed for the day to meet the boy who was hidden from me by my ex-wife, ("Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." -Shakespeare), and I discovered I had a daughter from a previous relationship. Now that I have seen the type of people they are, I want nothing to do with them. This causes me great pain. I know it is weak, but I wish they had never existed, I wish that I could take back my seed, to spare me this pain. They share my genetic material, but they not my children.
-"Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children." -William Makepeace Thackeray(Also The Crow)
I think about this when I pick up the elementary kids on my school bus route. I am the first adult most of these children see in the morning, and usually the first nice adult. Their mothers and fathers (when they are present) are usually unemployed and out drinking all night, or the other end of the spectrum, over-employed and too busy on the cell phone or trying to look good, trying to be superior to others. This hits home. It is self explanatory. If you don't get this and you are female, there is something seriously wrong with you and/or your priorities. Fellow men, when you finally can understand this without the usual male reaction, you will have found your souls.
-"God gave us children so that we might have roses in December." -J. M. Barrie
This is actually an altered version of the original quote "God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December." I heard this in a movie, and instantly got it. It instantly hit me. When I look at my three children, they are my roses during the snow in the deep of winter, in December. They are everything warm and beautiful to me in this world, the only good thing I have ever done. I love you TJ, Randy-Roo, and Josh.
-"Buildings may burn and people may die, but true love is eternal." -From The Crow
I was married before, for the wrong reasons. It was sex back then and I was addicted to her blonde, amazon body. She was from a different "world" than me, white upper-class, and I was a "break dancer", a b-boy, ghetto all the way. I am married again, and there is a difference. I can feel the true love here, a bond untainted and pure. Through everything, even unto death, my love for her will never die. It's cheesy but true. You complete me Kathy, I love you.