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Male Grief Is the Greatest Silent Killer of All
What can you do when you’re a man in a painful world that tells you not to feel?
I have watched my uncle go through three of the greatest losses of his life: his mother, his oldest sister, and his wife.
These losses came about in quick succession over the course of six years. Imagine that: six years, and you lose three of the most important women in your life. Each hits as a bullet straight to the heart.
Gone is the mother who cradled you as the lone boy in a brood of five. Gone are the holidays heralded by her, gone is her smile, gone is the futile hope that she’d be there through your entire life. You may have hoped you would go before her even though no mother should ever have to bury a child.
Even worse is the fact that you lost your mother to one of humanity’s greatest ills: Alzheimer’s. You didn’t lose her in one fell swoop; you lost her in fragments, in pieces, in slowing heartbeats as the light in her eyes began to dim moment by moment.
The moment you got the call, you were at the bar counter, your nieces’ voices wailing on the other end of the line. You downed your only shot before you closed your eyes and “manned up” — as the saying goes — to head towards the nursing home. The rest is a blur of…
