Strong men are not supposed to cry

The tear I will never forget

It was the first time I ever saw the trace of a tear in his eye.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

We were sitting in the car before he drove to the airport.
My father was going away for three months.
I had never been apart from him.

Strong men are not supposed to cry.

I didn’t see that tear again until twelve years later —
when he had cancer.

Perhaps you live in a world where your life demands that you push back momentum.
That you feel like a dam — and if you let even a crack show,
you’d burst open.

That a flood of emotion would smash through,
and you would be rendered useless.

Strong men are not supposed to cry.

That was my father.
That was the world in which he was shaped —
rough, cold, barren, rural New Zealand,
at the bottom of the world in the 1930s.

Where tough men climbed hills,
and yes — still castrated young sheep with their teeth.
(True story.)

---

My father was a rough, tough man,
shaped and sculpted by the unfeeling hills.

But he was also kind.

And yet the landscape around him refused to let him show it.

It was as if kindness might be a crack in the dam.
And if he let it through —
the whole thing might burst open.

Strong men are not supposed to cry.

A flood of unspeakable pain.
Years of silence. Years of abuse.

And yes…
in the midst of that mess,
a torrent of kindness.
A world of unspeakable beauty.
A land of unfathomable love.

Too much mess.

Better to keep it all in.
Better to stay dry.
Better to stay safe.

Which brings me to you.

What are you holding in?
What stories are you refusing to tell?
What emotions are you keeping at bay?

Are you the dam?
Or will you choose to be the river?

---

Yes, there will be pain if you open up.
You will feel untethered.
You will feel vulnerable.
You will no longer feel like concrete.

And yet —
you will be alive.

Like the river that courses through the wilderness,
weaving its way through the icy barren hills
of rural Central Otago,
giving life to everything it touches.

---

Don’t hold your pain in.
Don’t be strong in a world that’s thirsting for connection.

Instead —
be wild.
Be free.
Be true.

Be everything you were meant to be.

Be the river, not the dam.
Be the father, not the man.