Real Men Don’t Cry…until They do

Last week, Dan Verhasselt shared how he created a quiet space where he could spend time remembering his wife, Sandy. A candle. A photograph. Some music. A little space where the love and grief could both have somewhere to go. But there was another part of Dan’s grief that had nowhere to go. His tears.

For most of his life, Dan had been taught what a lot of men were taught: Don’t cry. Be strong. Be a man. I know that lesson. I internalized some version of it too: real men don’t cry. Call it the John Wayne school of emotional development. I don’t know whether John Wayne ever actually said those words, but he managed to communicate them pretty effectively in about a million other ways. So I learned to hold it in too. Which means that, even now, sometimes I need a little help getting the tears started. Disney movies work remarkably well. I’m not kidding.

The older I get, the sappier I become at almost any heartwarming movie. Give me a parent and child finding each other again, somebody sacrificing themselves for someone they love, or apparently any animated animal experiencing personal growth, and I’m in puddles. It’s like Jimmy Swaggert faced with a camera and a congregation.

I’m pretty sure those tears are not only about the movie. Most of them have probably been waiting in line for years. When we spend decades teaching ourselves not to cry, the tears do not necessarily disappear. They just look for another door.

Dan found one of those doors in a place he never expected. Here he is, in his own words.

Releasing My Emotions

by Dan Verhasselt

After Sandy’s death, I did not cry. I just kept holding all my emotions inside myself. That’s how I was raised. Don’t cry. Be strong. Be a man!

It made me miserable. I felt aching in my heart and anxiety in my body. Grief was dominating my life. I knew I needed to release some of what I was feeling, but I didn’t know how. I just couldn’t let it out.

Two months after Sandy’s death, I went to Hamilton’s Coping With Grief Symposium. They were offering free massages for grief. My plan was to skip that part and head home. Fortunately, the woman encouraging people to sign up was very persistent.

So I got a massage. I had no idea what would happen. As my body relaxed, I became very emotional. And then I cried. Not just a few tears. I wept deeply. For the first time since Sandy died, I felt like some of the pain and anxiety I had been carrying could finally come out. The tightness in my chest eased. It felt wonderful to finally let some of it go. Later, I realized something that shocked me: It had been forty years since I had cried.

Forty years.

I continue to get massages for grief regularly. I’m not sure exactly how they are different from other massages. For me, that time gives me a place to relax, feel what I am feeling, and sometimes cry. In mid-August, during another massage, I found myself weeping deeply again. Afterward, I noticed something had changed. The pain and anxiety I had been feeling in my chest had eased considerably. I did not feel as empty inside. I began to feel more like myself again.

I will always miss Sandy. But I also feel like I can move forward with my life again. I am grateful to the woman who convinced me to try that first massage. And I am especially grateful for my massage therapist, Rachael, who helped create a place where I felt safe enough to finally let go.

-Dan Verhasselt

I keep coming back to one sentence in Dan’s story: It had been forty years since I had cried. That is a long time to hold your breath.

The problem is that grief does not particularly care how well we have learned to hold things in. You can stay busy. Go back to work. Mow the lawn. Clean the garage. Tell everybody you’re fine. You can try to busy it away, ignore it, numb it, or outrun it. Grief will still be there.

Dan discovered something important: strength was not pretending he did not hurt. Strength was finally allowing himself to feel how much he did.

Tears Are Not the Point

To be clear, not everyone cries when they grieve. Some people cry every day. Some cry six months later when a song comes on in the grocery store. Some rarely cry at all. There is no correct number of tears. The point is not to make yourself cry. The point is to stop believing you have to prevent yourself from feeling.

For Dan, massage became a place where his body relaxed enough for the tears to come. For someone else, it might be walking, praying, talking with a friend, sitting with a therapist, or watching a Disney movie and discovering that Finding Nemo is a deep cultural commentary on loss, love and letting go.

Whatever opens the door.

The important thing is that when the feeling comes, we do not have to slam it shut.

What is Strength?

We sometimes talk about being strong as if grief were something we could defeat by tightening every muscle and refusing to blink. I think we have strength backward. Strength can sound like this: I hurt. I miss her. I am angry and scared. I have no idea what to do with all of this.

Dan did not become weaker when he cried. He stopped pretending strength required him not to. And after forty years, some of those tears finally found a door.

Remember

Crying is not weakness. Pretending you don’t hurt is not strength, unless you are literally face-to-face with a lion.

One Step Forward

Notice what you do when grief starts to surface. Do you get busy? Change the subject? Tell yourself to knock it off? Reach for a bottle of comfortably numb?

You do not have to force anything. Just notice what happens if, for a moment, you do not push the feeling away.

Consider This

What did you learn growing up about crying, grief, and what it means to be strong?

Until next week, remember: grief does not need you to make a show of strength. Strength can be letting yourself feel what is already there.

Peace,

Tom