A Tough Guy's Recompense
Stoic, is my demeanor
Masculine through and through
I’m as tough as the tough guys come
More manly than all of you
Emotions are for sissies
My tears had never flown
Catastrophes, I greeted with smiles
Heartbreak I’d never shown
She was all of five years old
The sweetest child I’d ever seen
To be told that she is dying of cancer
Was a diagnosis too obscene
Forty years of pent up feelings
I had learned to keep inside
Putting up a manly façade
Not even knowing what I did hide
And then the door flew open
As wide as wide could be
The dam holding back my humanity
Broke down inside of me
I shaved my head to be like her
I held her little hand
I would cry and laugh and giggle with her
Every moment that I can
Being a man doesn’t mean pretending
That your heart cannot be touched
It means being there to share your love
Helping others when life gets rough
It took a five year old, little girl
To really show me how to be a man
The courage she had to fight her fight
Proved her to be tougher than I am
I no longer hold back tears
I say, “I love you” all the time
Showing the world exactly what I feel
I no longer view as a hideous crime
I wept at her funeral
And, I’ve cried every night since
That door remains wide open
A tough guy’s recompense
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