The Despair in Men's Eyes

Men can make extraordinary caregivers. I know. I've witnessed them, and been inspired by many. But the effects of providing care for those they love, maybe especially their wives, mothers or lovers, wears on them in ways that are different from women. For instance, men, for the most part, don't bear helplessness well. Helplessness seems to erode their confidence; it eats at their sense of themselves. I think we men like to feel competent at whatever we do, but caring for the dying leads most all of the the edges of our competence. Men generally do not dwell there well.

As they do, a kind of despair can come over them. There are many mantles that are borne relunctantly by caregivers of the dying, and despair is one. Today I am thinking about the despair I saw in the eyes of two sons yesterday, as they went about doing everything right for their mother. Despair filled their eyes, clouding them like cataracts, and despair sagged the flesh of their faces, seeping with slow drips into their hearts.

I have seen similar looks in the faces of men providing care for their wives. Despair shrounds the light of love; many struggle gamely, and vainly, to dispel it.

I am at a time in my life when I envy especially the husbands whose devotion leads them to despair. Not married, as I am now in the aftermath of divorces, I wonder whether there will be for me an opportunity so to love a woman that, should I be the one providing care for her as she dies, I might experience that brave despair I see in the faces of these men.