Yes Men Do Cry Pages 1-2
Page 1 & 2
YES,
MEN DO CRY
A JOURNAL
One Man’s Personal Journey of Grieving the Loss of His Wife
Yes, men do grieve, mostly silently.
Introduction
The following journal is a documentation of how I coped with the loss of Lois (Booby), my wife of twenty-five years, on October 18, 2000. She was fifty-two years old and was the proud mom of our daughter, Dallas (Girly), and son, Nathan. The journal was written over a period of three years from November 2000 to October 2003, at first daily and, as time progressed, weekly, then monthly. It is a personal journey of the grieving process I went through. Yes, there are many books on grieving for women, but few for men. Many might not understand what I went through. There is no official ending as one does move on and accepts what is happening. Does one get over the loss? That is something only you can answer. I have moved on with my life, but I never forget.
I have no idea why I started writing the journal. Everything written just flowed, including forty-eight-plus poems. If you ask me today to write or create a poem, I couldn’t. There may be grammatical errors throughout as I am not a writer. It is how I felt, how I survived. As you will see, we are far stronger as individuals than we realize. There is repetition, but obviously, this is part of the healing process. Like Hemingway, I also had a place where I could write: the Sylvia Hotel overlooking English Bay in downtown Vancouver, Canada. I felt safe there.
There are many great counseling groups out there, but because of the macho man syndrome, men appear to prefer grieving in the privacy of their own home. I think that grieving for the primary caregiver begins unconsciously at the time of diagnosis. Why we don’t see this is because we are so focused on what is going on and do not understand what is happening; above all, we are scared and in denial.
Lois and I met on Valentine’s Day, 1975, and were married on May 23. She, like me, must have seen something that made us take that step so quickly. She was a caring, determined, and courageous individual who had a great sense of humor. In short, I like to think our relationship was a love story with a feisty heroine who was more than a pretty face.