At 4.29 this morning, a security guard in Kansas - a security guard in Kansas - texted me his sympathies.
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I barely know him and he barely knows Britain or Australia - he has certainly never been to either country.
But this is what he said: "My condolences to you, your family and your country."
"Everyone has their 9/11 moment. Every country has their 9/11 moment. This is your 9/11 moment. And although I don't have a TV handy, I'm sure it's on the scale of 9/11.
"I was hit pretty hard when I heard about it on the radio today coming back to work from getting something for lunch.
"There have been a lot of world leaders in the last 70 years. She was a large piece of the glue that held together the last half of the 20th century and 88 per cent of the first quarter of the 21st century."
A security guard in Kansas had taken the trouble to do the arithmetic - and he had taken the trouble to convey how moved he was by the death of Elizabeth, the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Queen of Australia.
She was the glue, he said.
And he was right. "She was always the measuring stick of how people should act/behave/what they should measure up to."
Out of the mouth of a security guard in Kansas comes forth a truth.
The British-American columnist Andrew Sullivan put it well: "I'm trying to write a column and I find myself in tears. I fear that everything she exemplified - restraint, duty, grace, reticence, persistence - are disappearing from the world."
In a world in turmoil, the Queen was the epitome of solid, old-fashioned values. Her loss matters as we all, in our different countries, try to keep steady on our feet as the tectonic plates shake beneath us. Even in the American mid-west, she mattered.
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Britain has changed prime minister this week. Australia's new government wrestles with enormous problems. There is war in Europe, with American, Australian and British weaponry destroying Russian weaponry and lives. China is assertive. American democracy is under threat. Lies abound from people in power.
And yet the Queen represented the old world of certainty and decency and truth and duty. She was a true public servant.
You can prepare for these moments but when they happen they still hit you like a sledge hammer.
As a journalist, I have been involved in rehearsals for the death of the Queen for decades. Every detail is prepared. How channels merge; what to wear; for how long normal broadcasting should be suspended; the formal ways of referring to people.
And then it comes and all coolness disappears. Eyes moisten, even the eyes of determined republicans.
I will vote for a republic when the vote comes.
But now I'm in tears.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
