You don't know hell until you are riding in a car for five hours listening to nothing but your own thoughts on your way home to face the hardest thing you've ever had to face. It doesn't happen to everyone, nor should it, but it's the kind of thing that makes you a totally different person. I find it hard to cry when I'm in public unless I see other people crying. That makes it easier. I've always kind of liked crying. It's a good release, and when you are finished, it gives you strength to go about your life with a little more dignity, a little more strength. Nowadays, I can't cry until I get to a certain buildup point, where I just break down and have a night of sad music and crying. But afterwards, I feel better, I feel like a more complete person, that it was worth it.
Crying is always easier when done with somebody, but often it's more difficult to stop. I used to be a big cry baby in grade school, when I wouldn't get picked for a team in gym class, or when my lunch order was screwed up. I was pathetic. My fourth grade teacher told me, "If you use up all your tears on these little things, you won't have any left for when you get older and when you really need to cry." It was good advice, back then, even though I didn't take it. I still continued to cry a lot, and now I've got more tears than I could have ever wanted.
That's what life brings you to help cope with suffering. Sometimes your body helps you out more than you think. When you've got gas, you release it. When you're tired, you sleep it off. And when you're sad, you cry. There's no good reason for tragedy. We could all get along just fine without it. But if we didn't have suffering, life wouldn't be complete. What makes suffering worth while is what we make of it. Whether you believe it or not, we've all lost somebody close to us. Those people are never coming back, in the physical sense. What we can do, however, is make their memories live on forever. Some people think that is done with a scholarship, or a foundation, or a plaque, or the naming of a building. Others perpetuate lost souls through the relentless unwillingness to give up.