Real men don’t cry “So they say”

By Ceirid Sampson, Bereavement Counsellor

Belgroves Funeral Home Limited

I was told to be a man I needed to stand up tall, don’t bend my knees, and let no one see me fall.

I was told to swallow my pride, not hide, and not cry. So, I had to decide when my father died, how to show this other side.

Holding back the tears as all expected, I wish I could have exhaled as I wanted, but while I trembled beneath my clothes no one would have known how my lips froze.

Handshakes were shared as sturdy as I could, while I quaked in my boots as I thought I should.

Good day, they said “You are holding it together”, but to me, it didn’t matter.

Drowning in the sea of unsaid goodbyes, buried beneath the weight of a man who lived so many lives.

I now sit back and ponder, now in awe, as I never got to be the man I wanted to be because I was too busy being the man he told me I should be.

I am forced to reflect on the song “Holding Back the Years” as I curled up on the concrete and cried like a little boy lost in the darkest world.

The pain pouring out of my soul, after years of being told “Real men don’t cry”

But what is a man, where is his strength if not in the courage to feel, understand, and still stand?

It was at that moment that I knew that Men Cry Too, not because we are weak and lost, but because we live and love.

This is a story, of a man who was able to release, heal, and finally surrender.

Does it make you Wonder?