When my mother died, people asked how I was holding up. I said fine. I organized the funeral, I handled the paperwork, I held my sisters while they cried. Everyone said I was so strong. What they did not see was me sitting in the parking lot of the funeral home, unable to go inside because my hands would not stop shaking.
Grief does not look the way people expect it to in men. We process it in silence. In anger that has no target. In work that never stops. I am still grieving three years later, and only now am I allowing myself that permission.