Young men can have an uncomfortable relationship with grief. Socially constructed masculine ideals
dictate that men be stoic in the aftermath of loss, most often expressing their sadness and despair as
anger. Perhaps because of alignment to such masculine ideals little research has been done to explore
young men’s grief e and chronicle the ways they think about loss, their responses and how they go about
describing their identities after a tragic event. Using qualitative individual interviews and photo elicitation
methods, we investigated the ways in which 25 men aged 19e25 grieved the accidental death of a
male friend. The study was conducted from April 2010eDecember 2011. Causes of death were diverse,
and included motor vehicle accidents, adventure sports, drug overdose and fights. The findings revealed
men’s predominant grief responses as emptiness, anger, stoicism and sentimentality. Participants’
description of their grief responses illustrated the ways in which they struggled to reconcile feelings of
vulnerability and manly ideals of strength and stoicism. We gained insight into men’s grief practices by
looking at the ways in which they aligned themselves with a post-loss masculine identity. These identities,
which included the adventurer, father-figure and the lamplighter, revealed gender-specific processes
through which men understood and actively dealt with their tragic loss. The results offer novel insights
to men’s grief and identity work that may serve to affirm other men’s experiences as well as guide
counselling services targeted to young men.