I got the call at the hospital that Dad had suffered a mild heart attack,
\nAnd I was feeling a little sorry for myself anyway,
\nBecause I couldn’t do the Tri I had trained for,
\nAnd I wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to stay strong, and after all, it was just a mild heart attack,
\nWasn’t it?
\nAnd besides, real men don’t cry do they?<\/p>\n
I got the call from Bill that the mild heart attack wasn’t so mild after all,
\nWhile I was at the Day of Caring,
\nAnd I wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to stay strong,
\nAnd all my employees were there,
\nAnd they’ve never seen me cry,
\nSo what would they think?
\nAnd besides, real men don’t cry do they?<\/p>\n
When we walked in the waiting room and saw Mom,
\nAnd she looked so tired,
\nI wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to stay strong,
\nAnd if I had, Mom would have broken down and so would Bill,
\nAnd I didn’t want that.
\nAnd besides, real men don’t cry do they?<\/p>\n
When we went into Dad’s room,
\nAnd we saw him lying there with tubes going in and out from every direction,
\nAnd he struggled so hard to breathe,
\nAnd he looked so sick,
\nI wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to stay strong,
\nAnd if I had,
\nDad would know that things weren’t good,
\nAnd we wanted him to get well.
\nAnd besides, real men don’t cry do they?<\/p>\n
When we left to come back home,
\nAnd I knew deep down that it was the last time I would see Dad,
\nI wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to stay strong,
\nAnd there was still hope,
\nSo it would appear like I had given up,
\nAnd I hadn’t.
\nAnd besides, real men don’t cry do they?<\/p>\n
When I got the call from Bob that Dad had passed away,
\nAnd Bob couldn’t talk,
\nI wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to stay strong,
\nAnd someone had to talk to Mom and calm her down,
\nAnd Bill wasn’t there and neither was I,
\nAnd Bob was too broken up,
\nSo we talked on the phone,
\nAnd Mom sounded better after she talked to me,
\nAnd besides real men don’t cry do they?<\/p>\n
When I got down to Florida,
\nAnd Bill and I pulled into the driveway,
\nAnd I saw Mom and Bob and Debbie,
\nI wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to stay strong,
\nAnd if I would have cried,
\nThey would too,
\nAnd they were probably all cried out,
\nAnd it wouldn’t help anyway.
\nAnd besides real men don’t cry do they?<\/p>\n
When I got up during the service to read Dad’s eulogy,
\nAnd I saw the whole family there,
\nAnd I saw the church was full,
\nI wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to stay strong,
\nBecause I was doing it for Dad,
\nAnd he had done hundreds of funerals,
\nAnd he had to be strong,
\nBecause he had to comfort the families,
\nAnd I did too.
\nAnd besides real men don’t cry do they?<\/p>\n
When we took Dad’s ashes out in Bob’s boat,
\nI felt the tears welling up inside,
\nBut I stifled them,
\nAnd I wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to be strong,
\nAnd if I had cried,
\nBill and Bob and Mom would have too,
\nAnd nobody could have opened the box,
\nAnd spread the ashes,
\nAnd couldn’t have said a few words.
\nAnd besides real men don’t cry do they?<\/p>\n
When I got to the airport,
\nAnd I was leaving Mom,
\nI wanted to cry,
\nBut I didn’t because I had to stay strong,
\nAnd Mary Lois was there to ride back with Mom,
\nAnd Didge was coming that evening,
\nAnd I was at the airport,
\nAnd what would all those people think?
\nAnd besides real men don’t cry anyway do they?<\/p>\n
So Monday was my first day back to normal,
\nAnd it was a new normal,
\nBut it was normal,
\nSo I went out for a bike ride to Middleville,
\nAnd my legs got tired,
\nBut it felt good to be back on the bike,
\nAnd I thought about how I had been so strong,
\nAnd how it helped everyone else,
\nAnd made Dad’s passing a little easier to accept,
\nAnd I was so proud of myself for being such a real man,
\nI cried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I got the call at the hospital that Dad had suffered a mild heart attack, And I was feeling a little sorry for myself anyway, Because I couldn’t do the Tri I had trained for, And I wanted to cry, But I didn’t because I had to stay strong, and after all, it was just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401,"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jackswriting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}