Interesting story about grieving

[shootingstar]

After my sister died, I saw my father cry for the first time in my life. It was a relief for us to see this.

He's not your super macho guy, but traditional I suppose. What is more remarkable is that he is probably try to hold himself together since he has cancer for the past 2 years. Yesterday he was trying to sound his normal cheerful self over the phone....in face of tragedy and now, his own mortality. Of course, there's my mother... who is more tempermental, naturally an angrier person.

I don't know what to say to him, but there's no point asking him why he tries to sound cheerful, etc. I know him..because for any of his children to question him on his response to "grief", will probably pull him down pyschologically even more that it could weaken him physically and permanently. So we go along with him..being cheerful for him. He is 82.

He is human but over the decades has really shown enormous personal strength and patience. As a little girl, I wondered why my own father didn't have a deep masculine voice, wasn't into sports at all, liked the arts.. as a child, I thought my father, well was /appeared to be abit wimpy. Short, small-boned, etc.

Right now, it really is a humbling example of mind over the physical. And he doesn't quite realize it himself.