On Saturday, The STAR reported two instances of male suicide, one of an adult and the other of a child.

In the first case, deejay Steven 'Eloquent' McKenzie, a 27-year-old deejay from St Ann, hung himself after allegedly slashing his girlfriend's throat in a jealous rage. In the other, 12-year-old Romario Royes apparently took his own life, also by hanging, after he found out that someone had let his pet pigeons escape.

In both cases, naturally, the relatives and friends of the two dead males were shocked at what happened. And what makes it even more painful is that there were no signs of the tragedy to come.

And that is, we find, almost always the case with our men, that no one knows what is happening with them until it is too late. Or, as in the case of young Romario, no one realises just how much a particular thing means to the individual.

Men are, unfortunately, indoctrinated not to show their emotions for the things and people they truly care about. Those emotions do, of course, eventually find an outlet, often with catastrophic results for themselves or persons around them.

For when a man attempts to drown his feelings in a vat of alcohol, bottle by bottle, surely it is as much a tragedy as when he ends it all with a knot in a rope.

We do not expect that the 'tough-man' visage of the Jamaican male will change anytime soon. But, we do ask that the women in their lives, whether relatives, spouses or simply friends, pay closer attention to them, note what they care about and simply be there to talk.

It could be a life saver.