Running To Stand Still

As I've struggled and began to make peace with my own emotions and thoughts over the last week,  I've realized that there are no easy answers.  The healing comes from leaning on friends, from sharing stories, from thinking about the future, and from finding ways to best honor and remember who our friend Dave was.

The funeral was on Friday and I allowed a lot of those feelings to come to the surface.  It's a lot to think about and deal with in the course of a week.  It was great to see so many old friends together in one place after years of separation.  We laughed and cried, and did our best to make sense of how we got to this point.  It was a reminder that we're all going through our own stages of grief and healing.

I was still very close to Dave at the time of his death, but a common sentiment after losing someone is always that you wish you had spent more time together.  If anything, Dave's funeral reminded all of us that we need to make more of an effort to get together at least once a year.  I think we owe it to each other to create new memories and stories.

When I arrived in Kindersley on Friday a small group of us took a quick trip to the church before the funeral to see Dave's body and add our mementos to his casket.  Wendy, Dave's girlfriend, had gone earlier with Dave's family and expressed how difficult it was.  We all shared the same thought.  It was his body, but it wasn't him.

I placed a film strip in Dave's casket.  It was from our first year of film school together, from one of the first times either of us had ever shot on film.  The strip showed Dave walking across Wascana park.  I wanted to place something with him that I still had a part of.  The strip was a spliced piece that we didn't use in our finished reel.  I still have that film to remember him and to remember that project we worked on together.

After that we all headed back to the house to get changed and to prepare.  It was a sobering experience to think about why we had all gathered.  

The service was obviously emotional for everyone, but Wendy seemed especially strong when she spoke of Dave.  Hearing so many stories and shared experiences gave us all moments to smile between our tears.

At a small cemetery outside of town, we carried Dave's casket to his grave.  As it was set in place I stepped back only to have my numbness return.  I can't believe I'll never see him again.  I can't believe this is where we are, I thought.  I watched as Wendy and Dave's parents said their final goodbyes before stepping away.  It was after that moment that I really felt awake.  

Life is cruel and unfair sometimes, but these are exactly the things that challenge us to be better people.  To make our time count as best we can.  I looked at Dave's casket one last time and made my peace. 

Back at the house all of Dave's friends began to gather.  The mood became instantly lighter as we joked and talked.  We caught up with one another, reminisced about good times, and laughed.  We smoked cigars in honor of Dave and watched the video I edited.  It was a gathering he would have been proud of.

Ward, Mike, Me, Wendy, and Tyler

As the night wore down it was just the five of us left.  We joked around, snapped some pictures, and played with little Darwin.  It became increasingly clear as things wrapped up that while the loss of Dave marked an ending, it also introduced us to a brand new chapter that we're all going to be a part of.  

When Ward, Tyler and I drove out to his parents place to stay the night, a huge display of northern lights lit up the prairie sky directly in front of us.  The symbolism was all too apparent as we fell silent for a moment. When things get rough I think we all need a reminder to keep looking forward and to rediscover the beauty that abounds in this unpredictable world.  Dave's gone, but now his story will live on through us, and for better or worse, it's something that we'll always share.

Dave in Video

When you sit down to review all of the photos and video footage that you've taken throughout a friends life, it's surprising to realize how little you've really captured.  There were so many moments and events that it didn't even cross our minds to pick up a camera. The irony is that as film students we didn't shoot near as much of one another as we should have.    

I was keen to edit something with all of the footage I had of Dave from our Indio road trips, and thankfully Tyler was interested in collaborating to help me pull something together.  Tyler deserves a lot of credit for finding his footage of Dave and a bunch of his photographs and overnighting them to me so I could edit something.  The project wouldn't be near as rich without his contributions.  Thanks, buddy! 

Of course, the task of editing something under these circumstances wasn't easy.  My goal was just to capture the essence of who Dave was.  To show him happy.  To give him a send off that would make him proud.  And, I think he would be proud to see just how much we cared about him, and how much we still care. 

R.E.M. was his favorite band so I wanted to include Losing My Religion in the edit.  Knowing that Dave and Wendy weren't religious people, but that there were those around them that were, I tried to create a balance.  I cut Losing My Religion to contrast with scenes of us at Salvation Mountain, a place adorned with Biblical quotes and messages.  I then ended the edit with a song by The Killers which has a closing lyric stating 'it seems like heaven ain't far away'.  

I'm also not a religious guy, but I can understand and respect it.  If there was ever a time you wanted to believe, it would be times like this. 

Today is the day of Dave's funeral.  It's going to be difficult, but I know being around friends will help.  This is for you, Dave. 

Preparing For the Funeral

Everything has kind of been a blur since the weekend.  I feel like I've been fairly composed for the most part, but then I'm also separated from everyone in Regina right now.  I have a feeling that things will be different when I see everyone.

If you're just joining the conversation, I wrote about the loss of my close friend Dave and what I remember most about him here.

Dave's funeral is taking place this Friday in Kindersley, SK which is about 3 hours away for me.  It's his hometown, and it makes sense to have it there.  Wendy, Dave's girlfriend, asked me if I'd like to be a pallbearer and I said I'd be honored.  It still seems so crazy to think about.  It's such a foreign situation to be in when you're dealing with someone who you knew so well.

The one bright spot in all of this is that I'll finally get to meet their baby, Darwin.  As I had mentioned in my previous post, the last time I saw Dave and Wendy was in August just days before Darwin was born.  He was already overdue and there was an expectation that they'd already be settled with the baby by the time I visited Regina for a wedding I was going to.  I obviously wish the circumstances for our first meeting were different, but here we are.

Everything has felt so symbolic over the last few days.  The leaves have just started to turn, my iPod keeps shuffling songs that remind me of Dave, and it was this very week just one year ago that we returned from our cross country drive.  It's still so surreal.

My week has otherwise just been a mix of getting work in order, buying myself a new suit (one piece at every store it seems like) and responding and talking to a lot of family and friends.  I want to thank everyone who has called, emailed, and left me messages.  Times like these are not only about the person we lost, but about the people we have around us for support.  It really means a lot, and I'm fortunate to have people around me who care.

Now there's just one final detail I need to finish editing for Dave . . .