Men don’t grieve, or do they? Men who grieve are something that is rarely seen in today’s society. This past year my grandfather, Lynn Osborne, passed away and I suffered a great loss. This man was my grandfather, my father, and my true best friend. Throughout my life, he taught me many things and without him I thought I could not go on living. In my eyes, there was no point in being here. I would rather it have been me so that way I could still see him. This was a very difficult time for me and it still is, but I am not alone. Many men have the same problem dealing with the loss of a loved one, but we have a strange way of showing it. We have a certain finitude when it comes to showing our emotions. Men do grieve, but in a different way than women. They just “bottle-up” their feelings and do not express their pain.As young boys, they were told, “big boys don’t cry.” That is what they live by, never showing emotion. When the time comes for men to show their emotions, they either do not know how or let it build up inside us. This leads to alcoholism, other addictions, and early death. When a loved one dies that is close to a certain man, he begins to act strange; doing things out of the norm. Although different men respond in different ways, they all have the same symptoms. For example, “I suffered, I grieved, I broke down, and I cooked fabulous meals for those who came to comfort me” (Anderson 203). This shows that he suffered and grieved but did not show it in the common way. He expresses his pain through cooking for the ones that came to mourn with him. Another example, “There is one place her absence come locally home to me, and it is a place I can’t avoid. I mean my own body…Now its like an empty house…I know the thing I want is exactly the thing I can never get” (Lewis 23). This shows a man’s love for his wife, but he do...
