Falling on my head like a memory

My husband cried last night. We were at his parents house celebrating Christmas and he was describing a scene from the book "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning", in which a Muslim man provides milk for a Bosnian Serb baby that he is supposed to be an enemy to, for something like 400 days.
Jack and I flanked our patriarch and stroked him as he told the story to his Mother and sisters. We also began to cry either by instinct or empathy I don't know which; all I know it that for him to feel it so deep makes me proud and a little annoyed that he is short with us, his family and feels so much for the world around him that he is doesn't seem to have patience for us at home. I do the same thing, so I can't be too hard on him. In my case it's having grown up in a family that was far too socially aware and oblivious on a personal level to the degree of a pretty complete lack of any sort of real and relevant relationship; but, if it was regarding someone we didn't know; here come the waterworks.