Last month Deb and I had another no so pleasant surprise. One early evening she was checking her Facebook messages when she came across on that stopped Deb in her tracks. An old friend contacted her saying that a gay guy she knew died through committing suicide. The man who contacted Deb about this also let us know when the funeral was being held. The news was a big shock to Deb and was totally unexpected.
We decided that we would go to the funeral even though it was way out west and a long drive to pay our last respects to him. With the week leading up to the funeral we had quite a few things going on yet the day quickly approached. I remember thinking that it was so strange that a friend of hers has died in February and how the month before we went to a funeral which was a real surprise for everyone involved.
Friday had come and it turned out to be a really hot day weather wise. I decided to drive with the directions that I had printed out from Google. We were cutting it a bit fine and were going to get there on time... Then we got lost due to the directions not being clear and what the actual places looked like. Driving a couple of kilometers of track I stopped and looked up the directions on my phone. It felt strange because it was the second time that week that we needed my phone for directions. We also realized at that point in time that we needed to buy a Navman or GPS thing for the car to help us... To cut the story short after the directions and managed to cross a very busy 6 to 8 lane road we found the place. After a false start of going to a wrong chapel and asking the main office we did find the right chapel. By this point I felt so bad because we were running late all because I got us late.
We both walked into the chapel to see how packed out it was with all his friends and family everywhere. Their were no seats left and people were standing listening to the service. Yet we went through the back and Deb's friend gave up his seat for her. Looking around I saw a huge variety of people from different backgrounds and age groups.
Down the front of the chapel was the coffin laid on adorned with memento's. Listening to the people speak like and also some family members moved everyone to tears. At one point in the funeral that called everyone up that wanted to give a flower up to the front to put on the coffin. The piece of music they decided to play for this part always deeply moves me. It was from that amazing movie called "The Piano". The piece was called Michael Nyman - The Heart Asks Pleasure First
(With having Asperger's I was so very tempted to take a few pictures very subtly to keep as memories. Yet I didn't do it because Deb would not have wanted me to. It took a whole lot of self control. ) Slowly people started coming up starting with the family. Deb went up then another of her friends went up with her as well. It was at this point that I had a few tears myself seeing this outpouring of emotions with people saying their goodbyes to this man in their own ways.There was even a chocolate bar up there which I found interesting and unique. We spoke to the guy's sister who after the funeral and she told Deb that "She was on of his 'Handpicked' friends." Meaning that she was special to him.
Afterwards we went to the wake or gathering at some beautiful Italian type of food place out west. Basically it took up the whole afternoon where we were stuck in traffic for nearly two hours coming back. We also had a birthday party dinner thing we had to go to as well that night. After that we didn't get home until really late at night. It was a really emotional and exhausting day for both of us because I was the one who did all the driving.With going to that funeral Deb and I were affected by that because it showed us that sometimes in life there are surprises... You may not know what another person is dealing with like depression or emotional pain.
Pleas if you or anybody else around you is struggling please contact Beyond Blue, Life Line or any other organization that can help wherever you are...
Beyond Blue
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/get-immediate-support
Lifeline
https://www.lifeline.org.au/Get-Help/
Mental Health in America
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/finding-help
More Helplines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
General Hotlines
http://blog.justaskinnyboy.com/hotlines
Every life is precious including yours.... So please seek help...
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