On Monday night, I lost a family member. Not in a car crash. Not from old age. Not from physical illness.
My family member hung himself.
I was at work when I found out. Tuesday morning, a morning like any other. I was feeling pretty good about myself and the day ahead – I wasn’t tired, I was very awake, alert. Then, I get a phone call from Michael.
“What’s L & M’s surname?” he asked.
“P…”, I said. “Why?”
“I think… I think L might have hung himself last night.”
“WHAT?! Are you fucking kidding me?!” At this point, I fell to my knees because I thought I was about to fall over.
“Let me confirm, and I’ll give you a call back.”
I waited five minutes, hoping it wasn’t true. Michael then called back.
“Sorry babes – it was L. He hung himself in the garage at home. [Eldest son] found him”
I was speechless. L is… was … my dad’s cousin’s husband. Sounds distant, but my family is all so close. My world started crumbling down. You might expect a car accident or something like that before you heard about a suicide in your own family, and L seemed like one of the last people I’d ever expect to do such a thing.
Turns out, L was depressed. He’d separated from M at least a week before – which I had no knowledge of – and was very down-and-out. He had asked his eldest son, aged 13 (eldest of three) if he loved him, why he loved him, and when his son replied, “Because you’re my dad”, L said, “That’s not a good enough reason”.
As this news entered my brain, I waited to wake up. Why would anyone, particularly someone with such a loving family, do this to themselves?
I went to the tearoom at work, and cried. I called Mum, and asked if it was true. She said it was, and she was with M at her parents’ house. I don’t know how many times I said, “Fucking hell” “Fuck!”. I hung up after talking to her for a bit, and sat looking out the window, watching people walking by, going about their regular daily business.
“HOW THE FUCK COULD THEY?!” I thought. Here I am, and there’s my family, in pain from the loss of a loved one, and these people are just walking past, seemingly without a care in the world.
How could I be in so much pain, and no-one else from the outside world realise it. Surely they would feel this too?
Sadly, they don’t. They may or may have, one day past or present, but right at this point in time, the ones walking past me don’t feel it.
I waited all night and the next morning to wake up from this bad dream. It doesn’t seem real. I couldn’t sleep properly last night, because his face and his lifeless body (or my mind’s image of what that might looked like) kept popping into my head, and it hurt. And I’m not even one who was super-close to him – his kids and wife, well, I just can’t imagine what they’re going through. So much pain, and guilt, and heartache.
The funeral is most likely going to be Friday. I think then, and only then, it will sink in that he’s actually gone. The smiley guy, the one who was so full of life and ideas, the one who DJed at my 21st birthday party, and danced with everyone. The one who was so in love with his wife, with his kids.
Rest now, L. I hope you find your peace in the Summerland. This is just the beginning of the next phase.
At the moment, it’s now a week since we *thought* we’d have our finance approval, but hold-up after hold-up has meant that it’s not happened.
I’ll preface this with a bit of information to clarify what’s happening: essentially, the house we’re buying currently has tenants in it (paying rent) and when we get our finance approved, those tenants will be given notice and will have 30 days to move out. When we first signed the contract, the settlement date was the 29th April so, obviously, we needed to have an answer in relation to our finance by the 29th March (30th at latest). Otherwise, we’ll have settlement delayed and have to pay rent for at least another week.
We’ve been told that our income is fine, our valuations were fine, our credit checks were fine, and it just needs to be formally approved.
To start with, the lady with our file (we’ll call her ‘K’) told us she’d have approval for us by Friday 26th March. Michael spoke to customer service on the phone in the morning, and left a message for her to call him back. After lunch, he did the same again. It got to about 3pm when things started getting desperate, and he called again, only to find that she wasn’t even there that day. We were rightly pissed off, but gave her the benefit of the doubt after being told it’d be approved Monday morning if she was there, and Monday afternoon if she wasn’t.
Monday came around – nothing. I should mention at this point that Michael has called our bank at least three times every weekday. And it’s also worth noting that the bank we’re going through doesn’t have a branch locally, so all our correspondence is by phone, fax, email and mail. Our file had progressed up the queue, and had been marked urgent, but we heard nothing more.
Tuesday came around. Nothing.
Wednesday and we had a glimmer of hope, but nothing resulted. Apparently, just before K went home for the day, the credit people (who now had our file – since they don’t normally deal with Tasmanian properties, it had to be forwarded to ‘higher-ups’) had further queries for the valuers. She had tried to contact them but they had shut for the day. She said she’d try them first thing in the morning.
Thursday came around, and this was the absolute last day we could have before we’d have to delay settlement. K got in touch with the Valuers, they gave her the information she needed over the phone, and she asked them if they could put in writing what they told her on the phone. They said fine, for her to send them an email and they’d reply directly. About 2 hours following her phone call to the valuers, I actually contacted the valuers myself and they advised they’d not received an email. I called K and she said she’d definitely sent it but would call them again, email it again and fax it through as well. By this time it was about 3pm and our hopes of having finance sorted out before Easter were pretty much shattered.
So now, we’re on a 5-day break – we’re hoping to have something by Tuesday (not sure if it’s a bank holiday Australia-wide or not), but at the earliest it’s more likely to be Wednesday. Which is the 7th April, meaning we’d be settling on the 7th May (if the tenants haven’t moved out early), a week later than first anticipated. I was hoping to have that week off, but it might need to be the following week now.
So that’s the story so far – getting anxious but trying to remain calm. It’ll all be worth it in the end.
