As the life support machines beep their cryptic signals, as the frosty air conditioning further chills limbs already prone to the prick of goosebumps, as the sadness seems to stretch into infinity, as your father lays motionless and speechless while the collective awaits his last breath, it will be entirely too late to download a lifetime’s worth of gratitude to him. Conscious only in theory, your kudos and absolutions may permeate to a limited degree, but even then his appreciation therefor will be reserved for the afterlife. Save yourself decades of regret and do not wait another minute to tell your father, your brother, your grandpa, your uncle, your cousin, your bestie that you love them.
Expressions of maternal, sisterly, and other female-directed affection are commonplace, acceptable within the fabric of our paternalistic and homophobic society. The insecure apes that have driven our cultural mores have rendered love between men as something dastardly and deviant, posit them as connections that must be wholly physical and therefore somehow violative. Male sexual intimacy is a beautiful part of the panoply of human existence, but just as love for one’s female relatives is disassociated from incestual entanglements so too can a deep love, platonic or romantic, exist between male friends and family members. Consequently, declaring this love is as critical for the establishment and maintenance of such relationships as it is in the heterosexual context.
It takes one avalanche, one rapid, one bus, one illness, one fleeting moment to wrest your best friend permanently away from your side. Life is fragile and cruel and its vicissitudes strike at the most unexpected and unfortunate times. It seems impossible to believe that your heroic father, capable of astounding feats of strength, hearty and hale, full of vigor and verve will one day be struck by the gravitational pull of aging. Although the transition will be subtle, it will seem to you to be instant – one day he is giving you a giggly piggyback and the next day he is walking with a cane. Even your brother, your eternal sidekick, inseparable from your most poignant memories, he is beginning to gray, is not immune to the inevitable progression of life.
Stating your love is only a mantra, not a talisman, not an amulet that will turn your kith and kin immortal in the literal sense. But, the energy, the power of the love that underlies the statement is eternal, will carry declarant and recipient through the eons, in whatever molecular form you both may take. A big, juicy hug, a real embrace, none of that bro tap nonsense, but a two-handed and powerful grasp can fortify your amigo for whatever struggles he needs to face. The impression that your love will leave upon him will not be forgotten, will be recalled when he most needs your strength, even if you are continents apart.
The discourse is replete with attempted codifications of what it takes to be a man, handwringing over the decline of male dominion, repetition of outdated tropes rooted in stoicism and physical power. In these tellings, emotional unavailability is a virtue, violence is aspirational, love is weakness. It is little wonder that we are living in a greedy, unfeeling, destructive world. But there is an antidote to this poisoned thinking, a small but critical shift into a space of love, peace, and harmony. It begins by speaking our hearts out loud, by bolstering our male compatriots with our love, by setting an example for the next generation of dudes that the distinctions between male and female are artificial, that there is a spectrum within each of us that we cannot be ashamed to unleash.
Do not be restrained by the pressure to live up to a supposed male ideal, do not let societal insanity prevent you from fully expressing your feelings for anyone and everyone, do not live in fear that your emotions are sinister. Spread your love far and wide, but especially close to home. We are none of us long for this world and we need to give and receive as much love as possible in that short span, we need to break the cycle that says we cannot tell our homies that we love them, that they are handsome, that they are doing a great job, that we admire and appreciate them. To do anything less would be to be less than the humans we were meant to be.