There is a fence post at the corner of our property that has leaned for as long as I can remember. My father never pulled it. Every spring he packed fresh dirt around the base, stamped it down with his boot, and said that was all a post needed. It is still standing. It has never once asked to be replaced, and neither did he.
My father did not talk about what was on his mind. He worked. He went to church. He sat quiet at the dinner table most nights and went to bed early. Sometimes he would sit in the truck in the driveway for a while before he came in the house. We did not ask him why. It would have seemed rude, and I am not sure he would have known how to answer.
I will say something that may sound hard. I do not entirely believe in what people now call mental health. I believe in sorrow and I believe in worry, because I have felt both. But I believe a man is meant to carry them, the way he carries a sack of feed, and that a man who sets them down in front of a stranger has given away something that belonged to him.
Today there is a counselor for everything. There are hotlines and apps and people who want you to tell them about your childhood. I am sure many of them mean well. But I wonder whether all that talking does any good. When I was a boy, a man with troubles took a long walk, or chopped some wood, or prayed. If that did not help, he prayed harder. If that did not help, he kept his mouth shut and went to work, and the work took care of the rest.
I am not saying people do not struggle. I know they do. I have seen it in men I respect, and I have seen it in the eyes of a few friends at church when the singing got quiet. I only think the struggle is private, and that it is a man’s own business to win it. A neighbor’s job is to give him room, not to pry.
My wife has suggested once or twice that I might talk to somebody about my own father. I told her I talk to God, and that has always been enough for me. She let it go. I was glad she did. There are some doors in a family that are better left closed, and I have always admired the men in my family who knew which doors those were.
I am voting for the Republican for Senate this fall, and this is part of the reason. I gather the other fellow would like a counselor to be easier to reach for a man like my father, and I would rather leave the door where he left it.
The fence post is still leaning. I pack the dirt around it every spring now, the way he did.
My father never once asked for help. I am proud to say none of us ever had to offer.
D. M.