LIFE’S UNDERTAKINGS TEARS, FEARS, AND Shortly after my mom died, I remember my father giving away the funeral flowers and freezing the funeral casseroles so he could travel to Florida. Alone. Despite the initial outpouring of grief and support from family and friends, my dad was soon left alone in his marital home and forced to navigate his grief as a solo traveller. Dad’s strongand-silent approach to loss was common in men then and today is still popular as “big boys don’t cry” parenting. Right now we’re in a whole new age of loss and isolation. In a sense, we’re all acting like men as we face the catastrophic impact of grieving a loved one’s death under health orders that prevent us from gathering and grieving. Funerals are as emotionally powerful as they are because they hold a safe and non-judgmental space for crying, laughing, storytelling, eating, loving, and hugging. My mom died more than 20 years ago (aka preCovid) and despite my father’s assurances that he was fine, he was not. And neither were my sister and I. A funeral is ultimately a dark kick-off into taking care of men, women, and children devastated by loss. Yet so often when we’re suffering, we slink away like wounded animals; we want to be alone because we feel alone. Men are doubly cursed when they are grieving because they’re afflicted with feelings of shame about looking or feeling “weak.” Male grief is unapologetically observed, and sometimes harshly judged, when visible tears and fears are out of character. My dad went on to bury two wives, my mother and decades later his secondmwife, and both times he channelled his inner John Wayne. At the time, as a much younger (slimmer) son, I was complicit in the male myth that strong men are solo men despite my early years in funeral service. Looking back I realize the depth of my father’s grief scared me. I had been devastated by my mother’s Christmastime death (and in some ways I still am) and I could not fathom losing my father, too. None of us gave my dad the space to spin off his axis, grieve fully and loudly, because that would mean he couldn’t fulfill the role of rock and lighthouse to me, my sister, and his young grandchildren. Grief always feels like fear and we all feel frightened and powerless in the shadow of death and heartbreak.
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My dad, forever unflappable, deeply insightful, and passionately dedicated to his family’s wellbeing, likely knew his grief triggered and deepened our own. As a family, we gathered and mourned at a powerful and beautiful funeral. But as a family, we grieved separately and alone. I will not model that lone wolf approach to my four boys. Part of being a man is being a human being, and all 8 billion of us laugh, love, cry and grieve. When it comes to loss and letting go of those we love and cherish, we really are all in this together. No one escapes pain in this lifetime not even John Wayne Florida-loving cowboys like my dad. Of course, not all men are created in the eyes of public opinion. When Premier Ford broke down and cried at a press conference this spring, his tears were met with scorn, shame, and outcry. Few Canadians, whether they consider Ford a servant or a scoundrel, were sympathetic toward the premier as he recounted stories about constituents dying alone and families devastated by separation and loss. Doug Ford cried as if this source of suffering was new; the cold hard reality is that millions of Ontarians for more than 15 months have been forced to say goodbye from afar and then mourn and grieve with little or no support. Forgive me but I will say it again about this pandemic: we are not all in this together. We’re all in the same ocean of suffering but some of us are drowning in dark, lonesome, turbulent waters while others drink champagne on yachts and chum the waters for sharks. If you have been bereaved since March 2020, you are suffering deeply and silently, and I shudder at the emotional cost that will be charged against each of us for our lack of political humanity toward the most vulnerable and devastated. I actually shed tears of sorrow, overwhelm and outrage as I write that. And it’s not just one specific political ruling class that’s oblivious to the pandemic-induced trauma of the bereaved. Being tone-deaf to more than 15 months of national and global suffering inflicts all levels of government and media. Recently Canadian politicians and media outlets moaned and wailed about how a photo of the Queen, dressed in black, masked, and sitting alone as she mourned her husband, was an iconic visual of the global pandemic. They claimed the Queen’s suffering was representative of all our suffering. Nope. The Queen’s sorrow in no way represents the pain
ETOBICOKE LAKESHORE PRESS
