Prying open the hurt box
It’s crazy how unintended and even unwanted experiences bring us to new circles of friends. How our lives shift in ways that once seemed unimaginable.
I feel such a stirring as this summer unfolds. This comes in the context of helping other men cope with the loss of a child.
So many guys—myself partly included—“gut our way through” a son or daughter’s death, as described by one friend. We keep busy, we’re racked with guilt, we’re back to work, and we may not always communicate well with loved ones.
Opening up what another grieving dad, another friend, calls our hurt box can be especially tough.
It’s time to pry the box open—in my expanding circle, at least.
Our goal is to throw a lifeline to other dads sorting through debilitating loss. Welcome them to join others who get it, perhaps gathering once or twice a month. Sitting around a fire to talk, in part, and also doing hands-on things: getting out on the water kayaking or fishing, or building stuff for a loved one in the wood shop.
Trying to find some camaraderie in response to the damnedest things.
How do you deal with it other than stuffing down the pain?
We’ll likely share a variety of experiences. Getting the stories out of what brought us here. How life has changed. How we are doing that week, day, or hour. And if we’re fortunate enough to have other kids and a wife or partner, how they’re coping. Replacing cracked hoses. Oil changes. Gut checks.
Some of us know things (having lived them) about going beyond “being strong” as a (stereotypical) man to deal with a new reality. This may involve opening up to the pain locked inside. Finding a way to access and someday manage it. Even growing through life-changing trauma in positive ways. And calling out self-defeating behaviors versus healthy ones.
Many of us struggle with forgiveness and anger, or the numbness of life that can suddenly feel so meaningless. All bound up in that decrepit box.
Starting a men’s group, or club—whatever we call it— is a notion that has taken a while to awaken in me. It’s been dormant since Denise and I opened Hope Floats, our nonprofit bereavement center in Kingston, Ma., nine years ago. Very likely the idea needed to age while I continued my ruminating and writing to sort through our response to our son Mike’s death. In my case, I needed to do that internal work first.
But how I dealt with my son’s death is likely not what’s happening in your case—or his case, referring to someone you may know. And that’s part of the point.
How we cope as parents is such an individual thing. No one hands us a roadmap to navigate the loss of a child, be it from a catastrophe or long-term illness or some random, demonic violent act. Few clichés or so-called truisms apply.
We’re suddenly on our own, cut off from much of the world. Acquaintances and even friends who just cannot go there shrink. And for many men, our guilt doubles down. We may feel that we have failed in our roles as protectors and providers; we also feel guilt for surviving when our son or daughter has left this world before us.
If I cry, it’s a reminder that I failed to protect her. — Dave Roberts
All of which leads to joining a support group. Not in exactly the same way many women and couples talk together, but in a fluid way that gets to the issues guys need—but sometimes resist—getting at.
Dave Roberts is a newfound friend and a grieving dad whose experience informs my views on this. He and his wife live in upstate New York, where Dave is an adjunct professor of psychology at Utica College. A rare cancer claimed the life of Dave and Cheri’s daughter, Jeannine, in 2003. In addition to teaching, Dave is a grief workshop facilitator, a writer and speaker who also assists bereavement support groups.
Spring-boarding from his own life, he’s thought and written a lot about topics like seeking forgiveness (for the perpetrator or forces responsible for a child’s death, and for oneself, for example) and the distinctive survivor’s guilt that some men face.
“For guys it runs a bit deeper,” he says of guilt. “For me it did. Why am I still around, and not her? Why didn’t I protect her? Men are more traditionally wired to be in touch with our thoughts versus emotions. If I cry, it’s a reminder that I failed to protect her.”
I recommend Dave’s recent article “The Road to Forgiveness” to further explore this topic, which is among many articles of his that will resonate with both men and women.
Closer to our home, another friend who lost his son several years ago in a motorcycle crash already does stuff in his own way to help guys he knows going through hard times. He pledges to check in on a friend’s sons. He takes others fishing off Stellwagen Bank. He gets in the face of a grieving husband who won’t stop drinking.
Last week he and I sat in the shade talking about our vision to reach other men. We shared a bit about what we’ve gone through.
It’s time to pry the hurt box open.
Naturally, Father’s Day came up, among those double-edged swords we have to get through. That’s just one of the topics a group of guys might pass around, similar in some ways to holidays and other signature family benchmarks: how to prepare for them; how to react or not when even a relative, such as your own father, just doesn’t get it. And how the day is forever altered, even if one is fortunate enough to have other children.
How do you deal with it other than stuffing down the pain?
We’ll get this going later this summer. Into the cooling nights, suggesting tools to open up that box.
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Ken Brack is the author of Especially For You—Finding a New Purpose After Unspeakable Loss. Here is a link to the book trailer.