Eleven people share the most heart wrenching things they've ever overheard and some are real tear-jerkers.
The adopted son
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“For my son’s 9th birthday I took my son and a handful of friends to the movies, then to pizza, then they all slept over. On the way home from pizza the kids were commenting on great the night was, and were saying thank you, etc…I said in reply ‘We love having kids over!’ Out of the blue one boy quietly whispered to me ‘my mom doesn’t love me.’ Broke my heart into bits. I asked why he said that, and he said, ‘she always left me. I would wake up and she would be gone.’ Come to find out, he had just been placed with his dad that he barely knew. The State had taken him away from his mom for neglect – leaving him every night alone to go to the bar. It had been going on for years and the neighbors would hear him crying alone and call the cops. She is a raging alcoholic and a drug addict, still. His dad had only met him once before, and was currently living with a new girlfriend, and she didn’t like kids. His son was now sleeping on the floor of the girlfriend’s apartment as there was no room for him. It was heartbreaking.To make matters worse, he sat alone every day after school on the steps of the library waiting for his dad, sometimes till past 7pm. When I found out I had him over every single day, eating a snack, doing homework together with my son, eating dinner most nights. Less than a year later his father asked if I could take him for ‘a while.’ He had broken off with the girlfriend and had no where to go, and no where to bring his son. No problem! I’m a single Mom of one son, but I always have room for anyone who needs to stay. His dad brought over all of his clothes in a garbage bag – everything he owns. He never ‘officially’ was mine, but I became his adopted mom since that time, bringing him to the doctors, going to parent/teacher conferences, music concerts, etc. He’s 19 now and doing fantastic. He made it through high school at an Honors A/P level, and then went to college on full scholarship. But better than that, he is an awesome person: funny, smart, kind, loving. I love my adopted son.”
The haunting question
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“I was walking home from the store (didn’t have a car at the time) about 5 years ago. This little boy who was probably around 4 or 5 and his mother were walking hand in hand somewhere, presumably to the park that was nearby. They aren’t saying much, just talking about the trees and gardens outside people’s houses. Things get quiet for a moment and then the kid drops a bomb: ‘Mommy…why did daddy die?’ He didn’t say it in a sad tone, but almost curious. The woman gets this really dejected look on her face, starts to cry and she sort of picks up speed. It wasn’t that she was deliberately trying to ignore his question, I just think she didn’t have the words to explain to him. I thought about it for the rest of the way home. Gave my dad a hug that night.”
The medieval buffet
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“I work in a castle that holds medieval banquets, one side of which is that we give out free wine. It’s two and a half hours long, so if you try, you’ve got enough time to get pretty wasted. One day, the banquet was finishing and we were saying goodbye to the guests. This one woman was fairly trollied. Knocking into the walls, knocking sh_t off of them, insulting me, my manager, and her manager who was up visiting. Her husband was out in the smoking area outside, ignoring the situation, apart from sending his 8-year-old son in to try and get her out of the building. ‘C’mon mom, time to go, Dad says we have to leave now, the castle is closing,’ etc. I could hear in his voice that he’d seen this behavior repeatedly, it was pleading, and sad, but resigned at the same time. So we got her out the door, myself and my colleagues went to change out of costume, and collected our tips. Maybe five minutes later, I left by the same door, and headed to the car. I found the woman a few yards off the gravel path, ass over tit in a large patch of briars. She’d gone to look at the view of the bay (the castle’s beside the sea), slipped, and fallen completely into the thorns. Covered in blood from a hundred tiny cuts. The son was bleating like Simba trying to wake up Mufasa after the stampede. ‘C’mon Mom, you can do it, just try to stand up, I know you can Mom, please, please, just try Mom.’ I don’t know how he held it together, there were tears in his voice, if not in his eyes. And the motherf_cking dad? He was down the road at the end of the path, maybe sixty yards away, leaning on a wall. Smoking a cigarette, without a care in the world. I walked down to him, and hissed at him to go and get his car, and drive it to the foot of the path, as his wife was incapable of walking to the carpark. He was as aloof as motherf_cking Viserys Targaryen, and nonchalantly sauntered off to the carpark. Me and two other staff members managed to get her upright, and I cleaned up her cuts with a med kit from work. She was out of her mind by this point, laughing and gurgling and wiping her f_cking blood over us. And her kid was embarrassed and ashamed and nearly crying. God, I was simultaneously so sad and angry driving home after work that night.”
The Taco Bell meal
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“I was in line at Taco Bell and was irritated at how long this woman and her kid were taking, until I found out what was going on. She was counting f_cking pennies. The kid said, ‘It’s okay Mom, we don’t need the [food items]’ and I swear to god I thought I was on the set of a live Charles Dickens story. You could see they didn’t have much, the mom looked malnourished, both skinny. I went up to the counter and said ‘No, how much us it, it’s a holiday gift from your neighbor’ and the lady tried to refuse but I said no (this wasn’t some huge charity on my part, not trying to get karma for that, it was only like three or four more bucks). I paid the amount more that she needed and she thanked me. It didn’t make me really feel much better, all I could think about was ‘what are they going to do for f_cking breakfast.’ Really puts one’s pettier problems into perspective.”
The girl on the train tracks
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“About a year ago I was waiting for a train and there was a bit of commotion around the train station. A police car was parked on one side and someone was talking about how there was a girl on the tracks. When I was going up the stairs to get to my train, two police officers were dragging a girl that looked to be about 15 right past me.
The way she cried was almost inhuman, not so much crying as screaming incoherently. She was dressed in a bright pink jacket, and one of the officers tried to make some small talk, to make her calm down. I heard him something along the lines of ‘what a nice jacket you have.’ She stopped screaming and crying just enough to reply. ‘I wanted my parents to know who it was.’ Her answer still haunts me today.”
The BBQ
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“A friend of mine got drunk at a BBQ (kids and husband were there too). When it was explained to her that someone would drive her home, she went ballistic. I hurried her kids into my car (didn’t have keys, just didn’t want them to hear the cursing ranting awfulness spewing from their mother). Her oldest son asked me what was wrong with her, and I explained ‘Mommy just drank too much bad stuff and it has made her sick. She’s just sick right now, but she will feel better later.’ He said, ‘Oh, she’s drunk again.’ I felt so horrible. Her youngest was crying, and she kept asking me, ‘How much longer until mommy feels better?’ I didn’t know what to say. I hated everything about that night.”
The rent money
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“I was at the local casino around 15 years ago and they were dragging a woman out for causing a disturbance. She was yelling, ‘He’s spending our rent money!!!’ Apparently he was at the table and wouldn’t stop playing and she was trying to interrupt it. Made me super sad.”
The EMT
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“I’m an EMT. Got called to a house for a possible broken arm on a child. Upon arrival, mom answered the door, Jim Beam in hand. Obvious white trash. She proceeded to tell us her ‘dumbass kid’ fell off his bunkbed. I had my partner talk to her in her hallway while I talked to the kid in the kitchen. Her was about 8, and COVERED in bruises and cigarette burns. Both forearms fractured BAD in the same spot. Weird thing is he’s not crying at all. Asked him what happened, he looked around frantically and hesitated, then mumbled he fell down a hill. I see a lead pipe leaning against the stove and put two and two together. Mom drove separate. While on the way to the hospital I called dispatch and made sure the cops were waiting at the front doors.”
Daycare
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“My daughter is just over one year old and we send her to an in-home daycare during the week, while we’re at work. There is another little girl in daycare with her who has a physical handicap having to do with her legs. Her parents drop her off with a wheelchair and leg braces for assisted walking. She’s an adorable little girl, always happy, and during normal playtime hours at daycare she gets around by doing a mix of crawling and pulling herself around the room on the floor. One morning, a few weeks ago, I dropped my daughter off and I was talking to the woman who runs the daycare about how my daughter was starting to walk. The other little girl overheard me and she immediately turned and said, ‘nooo, I want Lilly to stay on the floor with me….’ Broke my heart.”
The liquor store
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“I live in Oklahoma, where the only place you can purchase alcohol besides low-point beer is in a licensed, dedicated liquor store, which can only be open at certain times of day. Anyway, I’m heading to the one by my house to get a bottle of Scotch. I’m walking in, when I hear a little boy crying, ‘Mommy, you can’t go in there! You don’t need liquor!’ His mom replies, ‘Yes, I do! Now shut up and wait in the car!’ I haven’t really been able to think of much else since then.”
Martin’s house
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“Last week I was chilling out at a buddy’s house. At around midnight a bunch of cop cars and an ambulance show up to his neighbor’s house. We notice the cops are talking to the little boy who lives there. We know the boy pretty well, he is a good friend of my buddy’s son. We’re going to call him ‘Martin’ and he is about 7. After the police leave Martin is sitting outside and we call him over to see if everything is ok. Martin’s grandpa lives with him so we assumed something happened with him, because of the ambulance. But, as soon as we say ‘hey Martin what was going on there’ he instantly yells, ‘NOBODY HIT ME! MY DADDY DOESN’T HIT ME!!’ It made us so sad.”