Meeting the parents.

I bit the bullet and went to meet J's parents this weekend. Was going to go on Friday but my friend was too busy so I sat up having a late Breakfast and made arrangements to go the the next day. I got in touched with another friend. I'm very concious of people who are a bit detached from the group through having moved to different areas, etc, so think it's important to get together with them and give them chance to talk about things. We discussed shifting the funiture around in the flat to give it a fresh start and also make it so nobody knew which was J's recliner.

Andy pointed out a drawer full of photos to me which he'd come across. I spent many hours going through these looking through J's life. Lots of underwater shots of marine wildlife, photos from Lao, Goa, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand. Pictures of J skydiving, Zorb balling, Bunjee jumping. Then some from his university years with the friends he was supposed to be witnessing in Ireland. This all made me a bit angry in a way. In recent talks (and from bits of the letter i've seen) J had said that he had always being depressed and didn't connect with people. The photos showed diferently, a fascinating man who had travelled all over the place, keeping volumes of (still to be read) journals about the good times he was having. A very elligible batchelor, no debt, his own house and no previously failed marriages. I tried to tell him that he had a lot going for him and that he was an intersting bloke with lots of stories to tell. I really regret not getting him to show me these photos and tell me the stories behind them.

On Saturday we set off to get a reef made, picked up some sympathy cards and went for a drink whilst thinking of what to put in them. This is a problem I have have... I can never think of anything funny to put in Birthday cards, yet findind something serious to put in a sympathy card comes diffiecult to me to... maybe there's a niche in the market for humerous sympathy cards.

We arrived at J's parents at about 4.30PM. his half brother and his wife were also there and it was good to see J's dog again. I brought the collection of photos with me . We were immediately supplied with alcohol and had a long chat about various things, not involving J. J's dad used to be an ex (test) fighter pilot so had lots of intersting stories and I was even privilaged to be shown his hobby corner which is filled with home made stirling engines, models of his lotus car, model stationary engine and a jet fighter joystick all rigged up to motors and buzzers, a signed picture of Buzz Aldrin was the center piece. As the evening drew in we went inside for snacks and more drinks. The conversation turned to J, and about the time he spent there when he was in a deep hole of depression. I learnt that his parents had told him to bring us round at some point which I would have liked; J had disappeared away for a long time to his parents which worried me and I would have liked to have been more in touch with him in these dark times. I also learnt that he spent a lot of time there playing scrabble and monopoly... I wish i'd known, i love manopoly and can never find anyone else to play it with! His mum explained that she had gone as far as writing a letter to Stephen Fry, (J was a fan) to ask him to write to J with regards to hiw own bipolar disorder. Apparently a very deep and endearing letter had been sent back.

We spent a long time discussing what was wrong with Jason. His parents half thought the problem laid with his hearing and the fact he only had one ear. We got to discussing this. J didn't have that many problems, he was a bit of a dreamer and connected a lot of it to his ear. He used to complain about not being able to hear people talking properly amd getting left behind... This is normal for some people, I'm the same. I hear conversations but not what people are saying... usually in meetings, then have to ask people to recap when I hear something vaguley important. He says he never got into much music because he couldn't hear the lyrics, again I can very rarely understand lyrics. I think some people just don't process vocal information very well, but written or physical information is fine. J had hearing problems so seemed to conect the two together. He also said that he couldn't understand people and work them out... For a man that was very skilled at poker I don't see how this can be. These thoughts make me feel guilty for disagreeing with what I know is in his letter (I've beenshown certain bits of it) but I honestly believe he had very few actual problems (apart from depression). He spent a lot of time comparing himself to other people (and admiring others) and not seeing his own merits. Comparing ones self to others is impossible becasue we are all individuals. The fact that J was different was one of his good points. He was a unique character, irreplaceable. I kind of wish he was still alive so that I could give him a slap and tell him how wrong he's being, that it was the depression talking and not him. This is the thing that screws me up, there were no real problems that lead to this, just the depression, the problems that J made in his head.

I decided that now was not the time to read the suicide letter, after the funeral would be better.

I mentioned to his parents that it would be good at the wake if a few people could say something about how they knew J and what he meant. Not quite sure what i've got myself in to, but it feels right. I've already taken a look through his collection of books as i feel this is the best way to see who someone is. His parents told me to take any that I wanted and also insisted that I have his mountain bike. I feel a bit dodgy about this, but think it's better that I have it and appreciate it rather than it being charity shopped. We sat up late, leaving about 1 AM.

Slept round at the flat again on Saturday night and got up late to discuss the night before. Andy mentioned that J's parents had given him the task of picking mucic.... Two 10 minute slots to take care of for at the crematorium and CD's for the reception. Another friend has already requested that a tune of the LOTR sound track be played. J was a big floyd fan, his dad said no darkside of the moon. This is a proble.... We spent agaes listening through floyd trying to find tracks that aren't about suicide or going mad... ... ... There aren't many. I think The great Gig in the sky would be good as it's instrumental with no lyrics. It's awkard, a lot of floyd tunes are appropriate to J and I can see why he connected but I don't think they'd go down wee at a funeral. Portishead was another favourite band, again, the lyrics aren't really appropriate. Coldcut- Autumn leaves is another one we're considering. It's going to take a bit of working out to find stuff that's appropriate...

It feels weird organising stuff like this for a funeral and discussing somebodies life... I thought it'd upset me, but it doesn't really. I thought i knew the guy quite well but am still finding stuff out and it's time for us all to look at his life and remember the good-times, although there's always the overcasting thought that he ended it all for reasons that were only real to him. One thing that I found out that really threw me was the amount of time he'd known his recent group of friends. I was the last to "join" the group, I thought that everybody had known each other for years and years, this is not the case. J has known Andy for quite a long time but only got back in touch and started spending a lot of time with him about 2.5 years ago. Apparently C only came on the scene shortly after then and then I met J though work with a couple of others maybe 2 years ago... There's so much I wish I'd talked about and got round to doing when he was still about which upsets me, time ran out too soon.