[mdlthree]

I think the important distinction is that he is at home in the regular environment. If you are away from home without the family, everything is different; while at home only the absence is different. This absence feels massive because of the magnitude of habits formed participating in a family unit.

[chollida1]

Ahh, that's a very good point.

When I was away from my family, I was in a different environment( new job) so to me everything was new and exciting.

For him, he's still at home nothing's changed, so he has a much clearer frame of reference to remind him of his family.

[vubuntu]

Also note that he said "The truth is that I don’t cry because I miss them, I cry because I never fully appreciated ....." . He doesn't cry because he misses them. It is true with me as well and probably other folks who are claiming they don't cry. I too don't cry just because I miss them, but there are moments when the mind wanders into deeper thoughts , like what really matters in life, the silly little arguments you may have had with your wife in past, the times you ignored your kids needs (taking them to parks, play with them by putting aside your laptop etc) etc, and realize how silly those mistakes were, and how easily they could have been prevented when you think about the bigger context/meaning for your life is that time you spend happily with family and it is not going to come back. Time lost is lost forever. It is thoughts like these that make me cry, make me modify my future behavior for better.

Btw, I go thru this cycle of "self-realization/self-correction and then when the family returns back from vacation , then slowly getting back to the lazy original attitude of taking some of the things for granted about family and then back to summer and missing the family" :-).

I just hope that each of these cycles keeps making me a little better person than before!