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Farewell to a hunter
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misanthropic_curmudgeon
Nov 1, 2012, 9:46:25 PM11/1/12
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While I was overseas last week, I got a series of texts saying ‘ring me’, ‘we need to talk’ and ‘an incident that’s happened’ from The Midget and a guy I hunt with. It does not take a great deal of cognitive horsepower to figure out that something serious was up with somebody else that I hunt with.
I expected somebody had been shot, and I was right. But is a way that is inconceivably more horrible that a hunting incident.
It turns out that this wonderful young man I knew and had hunted with had decided he could not battle his illness any more, drove to secluded place, and killed himself. For at least 10 years he’d fought his disease, and finally he’d decided that the pain he’d cause those he left behind was less than all he had borne, bore now, and could bear into the future. As a brilliant young man, from a loving family, surrounded by many many friends, and as a committed Christian, one can only imagine how much he suffered in order for the scales to have been tipped so far that taking his own life was a sound decision.
A testament to this man was his viewing, which packed out the church where he lay in state. When I arrived there was no carparks. People came from all over the globe. People from all walks of life. At his service, there were no parks for blocks around. Mourners overflowed the church and into the hall outside, and remote displays were set up in anticipation. We, some of his hunting mates, sat together in the pews and recalled some of our times together. A couple of atheists, a backslidden Christian, and a Muslim sat in this Christian Church before the service and talked amongst ourselves of this young man and the time we’d shared.
His parents spoke of this kind creative soul, first place in his undergraduate degree, who trekked in Nepal, snowboarded in Canada, lived and loved, and was happiest in the outdoors. They spoke of his love of fishing and hunting, his impulsivity, and his time in South America. They’d been with him though his fight, and knew their son very well. In his parents, it was easy to see how such a wonderful man had come about. His mother talked about his impulsivity and how that led him to a wonderful and full – but very short – life, and her closing comment was that some might see his last act as an another impulsive one that turned out badly, but she did not think so. She understood.
His younger brother wept.
We heard of his gift of mimicry (which we never knew of), his multi-lingual abilities (which we never knew of either), his academic and artistic abilities (which also we never knew of), and his volunteering (again, unbeknownst to us), and his culinary skills (again, not displayed when one eats dehydrated foods in the bush!) There were things that his life in the church and family and academic and professional life we never knew, and we would daresay that there were things from his hunting life that his churchmates and family and colleagues never knew either, such was his humility.
Perhaps the saddest sight was his 90-plus-year-old grandmother, shrunken with age, being helped down the aisle as she walked with her grandson for the last time, following his coffin outside into the sun.
He’d obviously thought about his decision, and it must have pained him so. How. When. Where. What would happen afterwards. When he squeezed that trigger one last time the world lost a fine young man who had given so much of himself. None of this was hidden in the service. We all knew. But only he knew the intensity of his own internal agony that ate at him every day. We all knew about it, and of his fight, but we can only speculate on how keenly he suffered.
It was a quiet and sombre moment as his coffin was driven away, covered in a broadleaf (which is a deer’s favoured food) and some culinary herbs. That big black limousine slowly pulled away as hundreds of people remembered him in silence and grief.
Soon, after his cremation and before his interment, we’ll ask his parents of we can take him for one lust hunt. We’ll carry him into the bush, and pitch his tent in ‘his place’ for him to spend one last night under canvas. We’ll take him back to the spot where he froze his arse off one weekend and joked about his testicles being left on an icicle. We’ll re-walk some of the walks we did lade down with meat and antlers, sweating and knackered and happy. We’ll take him for a quiet walk in the bush, to sit beside a river and have lunch, to watch a clearing, and to just maybe to stalk in on a deer.
And we’ll say goodbye.
I expected somebody had been shot, and I was right. But is a way that is inconceivably more horrible that a hunting incident.
It turns out that this wonderful young man I knew and had hunted with had decided he could not battle his illness any more, drove to secluded place, and killed himself. For at least 10 years he’d fought his disease, and finally he’d decided that the pain he’d cause those he left behind was less than all he had borne, bore now, and could bear into the future. As a brilliant young man, from a loving family, surrounded by many many friends, and as a committed Christian, one can only imagine how much he suffered in order for the scales to have been tipped so far that taking his own life was a sound decision.
A testament to this man was his viewing, which packed out the church where he lay in state. When I arrived there was no carparks. People came from all over the globe. People from all walks of life. At his service, there were no parks for blocks around. Mourners overflowed the church and into the hall outside, and remote displays were set up in anticipation. We, some of his hunting mates, sat together in the pews and recalled some of our times together. A couple of atheists, a backslidden Christian, and a Muslim sat in this Christian Church before the service and talked amongst ourselves of this young man and the time we’d shared.
His parents spoke of this kind creative soul, first place in his undergraduate degree, who trekked in Nepal, snowboarded in Canada, lived and loved, and was happiest in the outdoors. They spoke of his love of fishing and hunting, his impulsivity, and his time in South America. They’d been with him though his fight, and knew their son very well. In his parents, it was easy to see how such a wonderful man had come about. His mother talked about his impulsivity and how that led him to a wonderful and full – but very short – life, and her closing comment was that some might see his last act as an another impulsive one that turned out badly, but she did not think so. She understood.
His younger brother wept.
We heard of his gift of mimicry (which we never knew of), his multi-lingual abilities (which we never knew of either), his academic and artistic abilities (which also we never knew of), and his volunteering (again, unbeknownst to us), and his culinary skills (again, not displayed when one eats dehydrated foods in the bush!) There were things that his life in the church and family and academic and professional life we never knew, and we would daresay that there were things from his hunting life that his churchmates and family and colleagues never knew either, such was his humility.
Perhaps the saddest sight was his 90-plus-year-old grandmother, shrunken with age, being helped down the aisle as she walked with her grandson for the last time, following his coffin outside into the sun.
He’d obviously thought about his decision, and it must have pained him so. How. When. Where. What would happen afterwards. When he squeezed that trigger one last time the world lost a fine young man who had given so much of himself. None of this was hidden in the service. We all knew. But only he knew the intensity of his own internal agony that ate at him every day. We all knew about it, and of his fight, but we can only speculate on how keenly he suffered.
It was a quiet and sombre moment as his coffin was driven away, covered in a broadleaf (which is a deer’s favoured food) and some culinary herbs. That big black limousine slowly pulled away as hundreds of people remembered him in silence and grief.
Soon, after his cremation and before his interment, we’ll ask his parents of we can take him for one lust hunt. We’ll carry him into the bush, and pitch his tent in ‘his place’ for him to spend one last night under canvas. We’ll take him back to the spot where he froze his arse off one weekend and joked about his testicles being left on an icicle. We’ll re-walk some of the walks we did lade down with meat and antlers, sweating and knackered and happy. We’ll take him for a quiet walk in the bush, to sit beside a river and have lunch, to watch a clearing, and to just maybe to stalk in on a deer.
And we’ll say goodbye.
Jim
Dec 27, 2012, 8:34:28 PM12/27/12
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So sorry to hear!
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