BLEEDING IN SILENCE

No one will ask if he is okay. That is not how we do things here. In African homes, asking a man if he is okay is almost suspicious — as if you are accusing him of weakness before he has even admitted to any. So we pour another drink. We laugh louder. We change the topic

This book is for the man who has cried exactly once in the last ten years, and even then, he made sure no one was watching. It is for the first son who became the family’s ATM before he turned 25. For the father who works two jobs and still wonders if he is doing enough. For the husband who has not told his wife what is really going on because he does not want to worry her. For the young man who was told, at eight years old, that crying was for girls — and believed it.