"Dad, Andrew Symonds has died....."
"What!?", I replied to my son in disbelief.
"How....when....why.....?" I pressed.
And so as the morning unfolded, the world heard of another sporting great taken too early.
After the death of Rod Marsh and Shane Warne only weeks earlier, the news was inconceivable.
Understandably, there has been a huge outpouring of grief from the cricket community.
I watched an interview between Andrew's best mate and playing partner Jimmy Maher with TV morning host Karl Stefanovic.
Jimmy soon became upset and clearly couldn't hold the conversation.
Karl, seeing Jimmy struggle, decided to call it quits with a heartfelt:
"Jimmy let's leave it there...stay strong mate...."
Under the circumstances, anyone would have said the same thing.
We all want Jimmy, and others feeling the pain of loss, to 'Stay Strong'.
But the words didn't sit well with me. I couldn't help but bristle.
You see, in the face of loss, men have been 'staying strong' for generations.
Ancestrally, it was a way of reinforcing our responsibility, as men, to do what our gender required us to do: be strong for the tribe.
Being strong meant that women, children and other men - could feel emotionally and collectively safe.
With tradition, the role of the man is to be an invulnerable performer - to show a 'stiff upper lip'; to 'toughen up'; to 'build a bridge'.
These actions are at the core of patriarchy, indeed, it's central to our masculinity.
But the problem with this, as I see it, is two fold.
The ability for us, as men, to reject feelings, not to display them and to put up solid brick walls only works in the short term.
But as we know, even concrete gets cancer.
Dangerously, our 'big boys don't cry' mantra teaches young men, through reacting and modelling, to be the same.
In this way the cycle of vulnerability-intolerant behaviour is perpetuated from men to boys through the generations.
We teach them to hold themselves the way we were held.
As shame-researcher Brene Brown discovered, our place in the world can be either 'Vikings or Victims'.
We can dominate, exert our power and stay in control of our emotions (Viking) or we can be the 'sucker', failing to hold your own (Victim).
In other words, be weak or be strong.
Neither, she says, is a long term strategy for a meaningful life.
Her advice? Show vulnerability - to put down our weapon, drop the struggle and to 'feel our feelings'.
My take is that we need males to be strong and powerful where it's called for and sweet and tender when it's called for and have the wisdom to know the difference.
So what could Karl have said differently to Jimmy?
What about:
"It's OK Jimmy, let it out..."
"It's OK to feel sad mate...".
"You're sad because he meant so much to you..."
Such forgiving tones permit our feelings to have carriage and that, in fact, our feelings of intense sadness in the face of loss, are both natural and normal.
When we are natural and normal, by default, we show vulnerability and that's OK.
Big boys can cry. And cry we should.
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