Hello!
I'm just gonna get straight to the point. Being sad is ok. No matter who you are.
I just spent 30 min on the phone with my dad since his best friend is about to die (or very close to dying, he is very sick). My dad and his friend are quite old, but the friend is younger than my dad. They have known each other for a very long time. My dad has never been the vulnerable one with anything, he always puts every one before himself and he never talk about his friendship with anyone (i don’t really know how to write this so that it makes sense). But I listened to my dad talking about the first time he met his friend and he can remember the first thing he said to my dad. He talked about how he feels like they are an old married couple, they don’t have to finish the sentences, they know what the other is thinking. “He might be weird and have his moments sometimes, but I do as well, so I guess we’re the same that way” this might not really mean anything to others, but I have never hear my dad talk like this before.
The point is, I really felt that my dad is sad about this. He never show sadness (not even when my brother died, he had to be the tough one and show that life moves on) and so I think that he has realized that it’s ok to feel sad. Even if you’re a guy, it’s ok to feel vulnerable. When his friend dies, I know my dad will be very very sad and I can’t imagine seeing that, cause it has never happened before. Because my dad is so old, he doesn’t have any family left. Just me, my sister and his granddaughter. So I think that his friend was the closest he could call family without it actually being by blood.
xoxo Josefine
