The Ghost of Tears Past

My home carries on through the night like a mule protesting its burdens. I attributed the racket to the wind—until last evening when I bumped into a cowboy ghost loitering in the hallway.

I was headed to the kitchen to seek solace in a warm glass of milk, but I found myself face-to-face with a spirit that had no intention of keeping to itself. He tipped his spectral hat and regarded me curiously as the tears streamed down his face.

“Why’re you leaking?” I asked.

“Men don’t cry,” he tried declaring, throat as dry as tumbleweed.

“Well, they do,” I said, “though half the time they don’t know they’re doing it until they’re screaming at the sky, punching a barn door, or wringing their hands in a church pew. Men cry all the time—even cowboys.”

At this, the ghost let loose a scoff that could’ve rattled a tin roof. “That’s a heap of bull if ever I heard.”

I wasn’t about to be cowed by a ghost, so I forged ahead.

“Men cry,” I said, “when they see their children’s eyes for the first time or when the western wind hugs them like an old campfire blanket. They cry, telling a wild tale at a friend’s funeral or casting a fishing line, pretending it’s just the sun stinging their eyes. They cry seeing a bill they can’t pay on time or when curling up with the dog they didn’t want but now couldn’t live without. Sometimes they cry from laughing too hard, ribs aching under the weight of all the things they can’t say out loud. They cry when they sip whiskey, when they pluck a guitar string in an empty room, or when they hold the one they love and sway under a sky so full of stars it seems ready to spill over. Men cry,” I said, “to remind themselves they’re still alive.”

The ghost’s glowing eyes narrowed, and for a moment, I thought he might challenge me to a duel, but instead, he dissolved into a mist and seeped through the floor planks, fleeing from a truth he’d spent eternity avoiding.

That night, as my house resumed its usual symphony of complaints, I heard something new—a low, soft weeping rising from the vent, mingling with the faint strains of a guitar ballad. It wasn’t a tune I knew, but it carried the sound of a heart shedding its burdens, one chord at a time.

When the house finally settled into silence, I realized the ghost was gone for good. I reckon even the spirits of cowboys need to cry sometimes. It’s how they cut the ties that bind them to this world—same as the rest of us.

So take it from me: whether you’re alive, dead, or something in between, there’s no shame in a tear. It’s just the soul’s way of stretching its legs.

Even out here, in this wild west world where the men are tough as old boots, there’s no escaping it. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the way it ought to be.