Growing up, young boys watch their dads for queues as to how to become a man. Up early, work hard, provide for the family, these are all traits fathers hope to pass along to their sons. I was fortunate that my dad passed on another trait, it’s OK to be a man and cry.

Not one you were expecting, I’m sure, but it is one that I recognized early in my adult life. I would see dad cry, especially when he was sad or heartbroken. The death of his dad & mom. The death of his wife, my mom. In fact, he would cry at most of the funerals I ever attended with him as they were usually relatives.

Over the years working with my dad’s WWII diary, website and presentations, probably the most asked question I got was “Why does your dad talk about the war when my dad (uncle, cousin, relative) wouldn’t share anything about it?”. The best I could figure out is that my dad let his emotions release him from the mental strain and have a good cry. I remember a presentation he did for my son Jason’s ninth-grade history class where at one point he started to tell a story and you could just see a flood of past emotions come over him and he just cried; not for long, he apologized to the class, and went on with his ‘war story’.

For me, it doesn’t take a sad situation for me to drop a tear. I can well up watching a Hallmark Movie when it all comes together, or the news when a young child does something heroic or watching someone do something unusually special for their community. Those happy tears can come pretty easy for me.

Then there are the sad tears, those that seem to build at the funeral home and eventually overcome me, especially when it is someone who is dear to my heart. Sometimes it’s when you least expect it, like the time we were walking out of the church at my mom’s Irish Loving cousin’s funeral and the vocalist began to sing ‘Danny Boy’; I just got tears in my eyes thinking about it. Or when I walked into my mom’s hospital room for the first time after her terminal cancer diagnosis, her little boy of 42 just fell sobbing into her arms. Or when the Priest performing my dad’s funeral played his last WWII letter home to his parents as his eulogy and over the speakers came the words “Well the time has come for me to come home”. Countless times, I have let my emotions release just like my dad taught me.

For weeks now, Communion at church has consisted of Suzanne and I walking to the front, I take the bread & wine and Suzanne dips her finger in the wine and places it on her tongue for her element. But today was different, when we got to the front Suzanne said “I’m going to try this myself today”. As I watched this woman, who I have seen struggle to learn to eat again take that cup and work to drink it on her own, I cried. . . . Tears of Joy.