Man Down: You Don’t Owe Anyone a Comeback Story Right Now

Not every wound needs to become wisdom right away

It’s a Sunday morning and you’ve finally managed to drag yourself out of the house without being forced by work or some other fucking obligation. You’re walking through the neighbourhood to grab a coffee and you notice you’re actually looking forward to it. You’d started believing you’d never look forward to anything again.

You turn the corner and notice a crowd of people in the parking lot of a local business. They all seem happy and energetic and it pisses you off. If they lost someone they love they wouldn’t be this happy. As you get closer you notice it’s a fundraising carwash. They’re raising money for cancer treatment in honour of “Hailey”, a local girl who died of cancer last year. She was the same age as your daughter when she died.

They’re out here making something positive happen from their tragedy and you? You haven’t done a damn thing. It takes everything you’ve got to put your socks on most mornings. Every wave and every honk from passersby is a reminder of how pathetic you are. You turn around and walk home with your head down. That’ll teach you for being stupid enough to try to enjoy something normal again.

Instead of enjoying a coffee, you’re fighting for dear life not to open a bottle and get blackout drunk.

Every day feels like walking through hell and here they are, changing the world. The questions you’re asking yourself are normal and unhelpful: Why can they do it when I can’t? Did they love their person more than I loved mine? Why the hell are they so much stronger and more motivated than me?

Every day feels like walking through hell, and there they are, changing the world. And you? You can barely put on a matching pair of socks most days. The questions hit you like a hammer to the heart: Why can they do it when I can’t? Are they stronger than me? Did they love their person more than I loved mine? Am I already failing at grief, too?

Listen to me, brother. They didn’t love the person they lost more than you. They’re not stronger and they’re not better. They’re different. On a different timeline. In a different headspace. In different circumstances. And let’s be honest, maybe they’re running from their pain instead of facing it. Just like I was. That’s their path and they’re doing their best to find their way. Just like you are.

When you lose someone you love, you’ll probably have the sense that you should do something to show them, and the world, how much you loved them. You might be terrified of the world forgetting they ever existed. If you let that happen, you’ll have failed them in life and again in death. You know you should do something, anything, but right now you’re barely making it through the day.

Every day that passes can feel like their memory is slipping further away. Like you’re grasping at smoke. The pressure and self-hatred makes an already brutal situation even harder.

As if that isn’t enough, people are feeding you no end of unsolicited advice about what you need to do to “move on.” They’ll tell you to find a sense of purpose or something meaningful to do. Start a nonprofit. Run a marathon. Launch a campaign. Write a book. You know it’s all well-meaning and they’re probably right, but it’s taking everything you have not to punch them in the face.

They might be great ideas. But they don’t have to be great ideas right now.

I tried to turn my grief into something useful way too early. I put a ton of pressure on myself to help other men grieve when I barely understood what I was going through. I can see now that I was trying to outrun the pain as much as I was trying to help anyone else. I eventually realized I needed to stop and work on my damn self first.

That clarity came with time and after a lot of self-imposed misery. If you’re not ready to do something yet? Recognizing and accepting it isn’t failure. It’s wisdom, brother.

You can’t fill anyone else’s cup if yours is bone dry. It’s something men have been trying to do since the dawn of time. It never works.

Your path right now is to stay alive. It’s not to destroy yourself avoiding your pain. It’s to show up the best you can for the people left behind. It’s not to make sense of it all right now. It’s not to be the hero in the comeback story you owe to the person who died.

“Finding purpose” isn’t about spinning your loss into a feel-good story or slapping a silver lining on a tragedy. It’s not about inspiring other people or collecting applause. It’s about figuring out how the hell to live this new life that you didn’t want but are stuck with. If you do something big and public one day, great. Just don’t do it for likes, legacy points, or to convince the world you’re okay when you’re not.

Men don’t usually work through their grief by sitting in a circle crying and talking about their feelings. Men process by doing. By moving. By trying to make something, fix something, protect someone. Tom Golden talks about this in The Way Men Heal. He calls them “honoring projects.” They’re not about healing the pain. They’re about carrying it. Making it visible. Building something out of the rubble. It’s not about moving on as much as it’s about carrying your love forward.

So what does “doing” look like, when you’re ready? It might be building a bench. Planting a tree. Getting a tattoo. Creating a scholarship. Telling your kid a story about their sibling once a week. None of it has to be big. It just has to be real. And none of it has to happen now.

And if you don’t do any of it? That’s okay too. This isn’t about pressure, brother. It’s about permission.

Permission to NOT turn your grief into a project. Permission to stop comparing your shattered life to someone else’s highlight reel. Permission to trust that whatever it looks like for you is enough.

All I’m asking is that you keep the door open an inch. You don’t need a vision board. You don’t need a plan. You don’t need to tell anyone.

Just stay open to the idea that maybe one day, you’ll want to do something with this. That’s enough.

There will be a time when the pain isn’t as all consuming as it is now. Even though that might seem impossible to imagine right now, it’s true. When that time comes you might find yourself wanting to create something that says, “I love them. I miss them. And they mattered.” If you do, it won’t be for credit or to prove anything. You’ll do it because it feels like love in action.

But don’t force it. Don’t fake it. And sure as hell don’t rush it.

Here’s something you can do right now to keep their memory alive. Take a moment each day, say their name out loud and tell them you love them. Try starting there. Some days it’ll make you smile and some days it will hurt. And some days you won’t be able to bring yourself to do it. That’s ok.

You don’t owe the world a comeback story. You owe yourself the truth. And right now, the truth might be, “I’m not building anything. I’m just trying to survive.”

That’s more than enough, brother.

Read More of This Guide

• Read This First
  Welcome to Grief. I’m sorry you’re here.

• What the Hell Is Happening to Me?
  Your system is short-circuiting because it’s trying to save you.

• What Grief Does to a Man’s Mind
  Why You’re Going Silent, Blowing Up, or Disappearing

• What to Expect in the Days, Weeks, and Months Ahead
  The Funeral Isn’t the Finish Line. It’s the Starting Gun.

• What to Do Right Now
  You can’t fix this. But you can survive it.

• The Mask Is a Lie You Tell Yourself to Feel in Control
  You don’t owe anyone a performance while your world is burning.

• When the Urge to Escape Takes Over
  When you want to punch something. Or disappear. Or drink until you black out.

• The Seven Deadly Lies
  How to see the lies that grief makes so easy to believe.

• You Don’t Owe Anyone a Comeback Story Right Now
  Not every wound needs to become wisdom right away

• Final Word
  You're still here. That matters.