‘One tragedy shouldn’t turn into two for the rest of your life’: Glenn McGrath’s advice to old enemy, Andrew Strauss
In past the decade-and-a-half, countless women have opened up to Glenn McGrath about their breast cancer struggles. But the biggest surprise to the former international fast bowler has been the one question many men ask him.
Glenn McGrath is at Lord’s cricket ground, commentating on the sport he loves and reflecting how “it’s funny where life takes you”.
It has been 15 years since his beloved English-born wife Jane died of breast cancer, aged 42, in June 2008. In that time, the foundation set up when she was first diagnosed has supported more than 123,000 Australian families and employs 200 McGrath breast cancer nurses.
Lord’s turned red in memory of Ruth Strauss (nee McDonald), the 46-year-old Ballarat-born wife of former England captain Andrew Strauss. Ruth died four days after Christmas in 2018, succumbing to a rare lung disease, ALK-positive cancer.
While the McGrath Foundation and its pink day at the Sydney Cricket Ground Test helps fund breast cancer nurses, the Ruth Strauss Foundation aims to give emotional support to families preparing for the death of a parent, as well as raise funds for research into non-smoking lung cancers.
2019 ✅
— Ruth Strauss Foundation (@RuthStraussFdn) June 28, 2023
2020 ✅
2021 ✅
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2023 â¤ï¸@HomeOfCricket will unite in a sea of red for the fifth year of #RedForRuth
Wear red wherever you are tomorrow and help us support families so they don't have to face grief alone â¤ï¸
âž¡ï¸ https://t.co/aOjBRS6tBhpic.twitter.com/ZT8QZWRM5A
For McGrath, currently working for BBC’s Test Match Special, the past the decade-and-a-half has seen countless women tell him of their own breast cancer struggles. But the biggest surprise to the former international fast bowler has been the one question many men ask him.
It has nothing to do with cricket or bowling technique or which team is the Ashes favourite.
“People come up and tell me their stories of going through breast cancer and having the support of the breast cancer nurse, but the one thing I hadn’t expected was the number of men who have come up to me,” McGrath, 53, told The Australian.
“They say they have lost their partner, lost them two years, five years, ten years ago, and they have met someone else and they want to know when is it too soon (to repartner)?”
McGrath said when Jane died, leaving him with two small children, James and Holly, he was adamant he didn’t want to meet anyone else. He had fallen in love with Jane, a flight attendant, after meeting in a Hong Kong bar in 1995.
“I tell people it’s a totally individual decision. When Jane passed away I wasn’t getting married again, I was absolutely adamant. But you don’t realise until you are in that situation: I had two young children without a mother figure in their life and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life by myself.”
Even so, McGrath was surprised when he met Sara Leonardi, an Italian interior designer, within a year of Jane’s death at a party in Cape Town.
“Even though I never wanted to meet anyone else, I then met Sara and she is just an incredible person and the relationship she has with my other two children is brilliant, so I have been very lucky in that respect,’’ he said.
“It (re-partnering) is a totally individual thing and only you will know. I know some people have family that sometimes say ‘oh no, you can’t get married again’ or ‘you can’t meet someone again’, but that’s a selfish perspective.”
McGrath and Leonardi, who up-ended her life to relocate to Sydney, went on to have a daughter Maddison, now seven, which brought the blended family even closer together.
Now McGrath is able to give support to his one-time rival, Strauss.
Where McGrath would once keep his fiercest deliveries for Strauss during a 2005 Ashes campaign, he is now on the end of the phone to the Englishman dealing with his own ongoing grief.
Like McGrath, Strauss was widowed in his 40s with two children, Sam, 13, and Luca, 10, wanting to find a way to honour his former wife and help others in a similar situation.
Ruth received the devastating news her cancer was terminal stage four on the day the family was moving house – and in shock she turned to the removalists to ask them if they would like a cup of tea.
She wanted to do something similar to the foundation set up by Jane McGrath, leaving Strauss with a note to “do death well”, and expressing a wish that families facing a terminal diagnosis like hers were better prepared for bereavement.
Ruth’s mindset was similar to that of Jane.
McGrath tells how he had to be strong for his children and his advice to Strauss was to focus on the kids.
“I always said if I wasn’t coping there was one person who wouldn’t be happy with me, and that was Jane, and that kept me going. I said to Andrew, to focus on the kids, they are the most important thing.”
McGrath has also told Strauss that he is allowed to be happy again.
“When you think about the role being reversed … one tragedy shouldn’t turn into two for the rest of their life. You are allowed to be happy again.”
His advice for the bereaved men who ask his advice is to “meet a good person”.
“That’s what Jane would have wanted for me, and what Ruth would want for Straussy. Life goes on, the sun comes up next day, even if you don’t want it to, and having young children you have got to be strong for them too. And I think Straussy has found that, and like me, he has had good people around him.”
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