A friend of mine passed away last week, and we only heard about it by chance on Tuesday this week when an RIP.ie announcement came up on Facebook.
Aimee was the one who saw it and was in a panic as she told me, and it just left us both feeling numb.
The funeral service was today, so thankfully, we heard beforehand and were able to attend.
Fred
I first met him about 12 years ago when we were putting on a couple of gigs in the town.
He knew my mum, who introduced him to me, my dad, and Dave (the singer from my band), and we had arranged to do some recordings out in his place.
At that time, he was only recovering from a bad accident he had been in, and told us as much, but had the intention of rebuilding the recording studio and getting it going again.
Life happened, and that was put on hiatus until around covid, when he was able to fully set it up.
We all hooked up again after the lockdowns were over, and he mixed our two albums, which up to that point were partially mixed.
Dave had heard the final mix of the albums shortly before passing away. He may have never gotten a chance to physically hold the two albums, but we were happy that he did hear them.
Fred had grown to be very close friends with my dad and Dave, who regularly visited and stayed in his house while working.
Dave, at one stage, actually started staying there for a handful of days in a row, just to hang out and enjoy the nature and seclusion of Fred's house.
He and Dave became good friends, and the two of them had energy that matched one another perfectly. Very chilled out, creative, chatter boxes.
When Dave passed away (nearly 2 years ago), it hit us all hard, especially Fred.
Now, almost two years later, Fred has passed away too. Last week, we heard news that another friend introduced to us by Dave, Shay, also passed away. We used to lovingly call him CI-Shay because he was very paranoid and had some issues.
There has been so much death in the last number of years; one of my friends committed suicide only 3 years ago, and another friend, not long after that, attempted it.
A friend I used to be in a band with when we were teenagers also died a while back.
Another person we all used to hang out with in our teenage years, but inevitably lost contact with, died around the same time.
So many family members and friends over the last number of years, and it always hits the same; it never gets easy.
(As I was writing this, other people kept coming to mind) It's strange in a way that it is only when you start truly thinking about people that you suddenly remember that they're no longer with us.
It's almost like our brain protects us by allowing us to imagine that they are just a phone call away, until you pick up the phone and remember.
The funeral today was nice. Aimee and I drove up with the kids, and we met my sister, her kids, and my parents there.
It was nice hearing all of the funny stories, and it was also nice seeing people whom Fred introduced us to.
The kids thought it was playtime when we arrived, but we took turns bringing them outside to blow off some steam.
