Introduction
Grief can be a challenging experience that catal a diverse array of social processes and practices (Jacobs & Prigerson, 2000; Ritchie, 2003). While there has been scholar attention paid to grief and the linkages to health and illness, gender analyses are conspicuous absent and, in particular, studies examining connections between masculinitie and grief among young men. Instead much of the literature has focussed on describing gender differences between men and women. When Western men grieve in ways that invoke stoicism, anger and rationality, it has often been explained as flowing from socially sanctioned masculine ideals