I didn’t cry when I scraped my knees as a boy. Okay—maybe I did cry that day I fell learning how to ride my bicycle. But it wasn’t real crying.
Just one stubborn tear.
The kind that sneaks out before your pride catches it.
I wiped it away fast and blamed it on the wind.
I didn’t cry when my first girlfriend broke my heart either.
Nope.
I was a gladiator.
I screamed one painful scream in the dark—just one.
Then I sat on my bed like a philosopher, stared at the ceiling, and vowed never to let anyone know.
Even my boys didn’t notice.
They asked, “You good, bro?”
I smiled and said, “I’m blessed.”
Meanwhile, I was dying inside like a forgotten mandazi under a school desk.
So I became steel.
Or at least, I thought I did.
But the first time I truly cried as a man—
It wasn’t from a fall, or heartbreak, or rejection.
It was from love.
And loss.
It was the day they lowered my father into the ground.
There were people around, so I tried to hold it.
Clenched jaw. Tight chest. That fake strength men wear like armor.
But when the first scoop of soil hit the casket,
it made a sound—deep, final, heavy.
A sound that said, “He’s not coming back.”
Something inside me cracked.
I cried like the boy I had hidden for years.
But truth be told—
The tears began earlier.
When the news of his death came,
I was standing still, but my world moved.
Tears came down.
Slow, certain.
But no sound came from me.
It was the kind of cry that doesn’t ask for comfort.
Just silence.
That night, I sat alone.
And for the first time, I didn’t wipe the tears.
I let them fall.
Not just for him—but for every time I’d held them in.
I cried because I lost the man who taught me how to be present.
How to be enough.
How to carry the weight and never complain.
And I wasn’t alone in that cry.
I saw the bishop—his cousin—wipe his face.
I saw the father, his own brother, turn away with shaking shoulders.
I saw men—fathers, friends, elders—who were born of fire,
let water fall from their eyes.
They cried not just because he died,
but because men like him are rare,
and the world just got quieter.
And in that moment, I realized—
Crying didn’t make me less of a man.
It reminded me that I was one.
A son.
A man with roots.
And a heart.