Weeping

At this point in my life, I’m surprised by how often tears come into my eyes. As I grieve over the loss of my friend, Su Patterson (she died on 31 March), and read of the deaths of older, more vulnerable people (like me), several times a day I weep.

Yesterday I read of Captain Douglas L. Hickok, 57, a National Guard troop who died in a Pennsylvania hospital on March 28. He contracted covid-19 while helping those infected. You can read his story at https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?pli=1#inbox/FMfcgxwHMsPSVCMXBJGdCjDbGtvRbtMV

I wept as I read his story.

Tears blocked my vision as I wrote about my shame for having participated in the Vietnam war. My cheeks stay wet as I remember the men who died at my side during combat. The tears flow as I recall the South Vietnamese I knew who were left behind when Vietnam fell and were killed by the North Vietnamese.

As a boy and young man, I was taught that men don’t cry; only women do. So my weeping shames me.

But it shouldn’t. I know now that strong, good, noble men weep in the face of tragedy. It is right and proper that we should.

So let the weeping come. With the pandemic and the economic collapse it has brought on, it is the time for weeping.