I wrote a thing for you.
I first met Darren in the 1970s when we were both at Reservoir East Primary School. We weren’t in the same year but in the Reservoir East playground we all mixed with each other. I didn’t know Darren well at primary school, but I did know him.
In the 80s, we were at Reservoir High School, again, not in the same year level, but there was some cross polination. In those years, I got to know Darren best when we worked on musical productions together - not on stage, but on the production side of things like helping in the wardrobe department or turning pages for the band during the nightly performances. What I remember most about that time was Darren’s outspokenness and his sense of humour.
After school, we went our separate ways, but when we connected again almost ten years ago, Darren’s humour came to the fore again.
It was through Facebook that we connected, and not long after that we caught up in person. When we did meet up again, Darren very seriously explained there was something he needed to tell me, something that I did not know. We were sitting on my back deck and I poured him a glass of wine, for courage. Darren explained to me that unbeknown to most people, he was gay. Well, I frankly pissed myself laughing and assured him that unbeknown to him, most of us were aware he was gay. Maybe even before he realised it himself. To say he was pissed off and disbelieving is an understatement. Pissed off, because I had ruined his big moment by laughing at him, and disbelieving because he was completely unaware of just how obvious it was to the rest of us.
Coming out is not an easy thing to do, and I shouldn’t have laughed. I now understand that people who identify as queer are on a lifelong journey of coming out. It’s exhausting and it’s a brave thing to do and I really should have been more supportive of Darren when he told me.
It didn’t affect our friendship though, and over the last decade we became important to one another in a way that not all friendships do. We didn’t plan it, it just kind of happened and we built it on a foundation of a supremely excellent night out at a party in Lalor, where we danced our arses off all night.
We didn’t go out together much after that - Darren was really a homebody, preferring to hang out at home rather than go out at night. Although we didn’t go out much I have lost count of the hours we spent together on my back deck or at Darren’s house drinking coffee and sharing tales of woe. And Darren’s woes were legion. He was always in some kind of dispute with a government department, a business or a fractious individual. At those times we would put our heads together to write a letter to whatever decision maker could fix the issue and mostly those letters would get Darren a result. He would have been a formidable advocate, if only he had decided to go down that path.
We didn’t just write cranky, officious letters though, we also judged people on their fashion choices, judged people on their parking or driving ability. More seriously though, we talked about the big things that were happening in our lives - relationships, ailing parents, careers. On that front, I think it is safe to say that Darren found his vocation working as a disability carer. I was so proud of him for taking that step, of training to get his qualifications and then putting himself forward to take on clients. Caring is not easy work, but Darren was a natural at it, and even he was proud of himself especially when he could see the difference he was making in people’s lives. And he had the rare joy of forming friendships with some clients, in particular Luke, who Darren had a lot of love for and enjoyed a special bond with.
I can only imagine how painful the loss of Darren is for Luke, and I’m thinking of you mate.
A few years ago I developed an interest in tropical fish. It turned into an obsession for a little while, surprising my friends and family who had never known me to have an interest in fish before that. Darren is totally to blame. Totally.
Just after Darren came back into my life I visited him at home and was surprised to see a giant fish tank full of beautiful tropical fish, in his lounge room. I couldn’t stop looking at them, they were gorgeous.
Not long after, I rescued an old fish tank from my daughter’s room and set it up again. I was cycling the tank, running it without fish for a while, to get the water parameters right. One day, without warning, Darren turned up at my door waving a water filled bag at me. It contained a white fish. Darren said “you have to take this fish, my fish are trying to kill it”. He knew I had a tank set up and, in what became a pattern over the years, he offloaded his “problem fish” on to me. I protested that I didn’t know if the water was ready for fish yet. He told me he didn’t care, strode into my kitchen, lifted the lid of the tank and tipped the fish in, despite my protests. That says a lot about Darren actually. He did what he wanted to do, whether you wanted him to or not!
The fish became known as Alby and I started to research, to learn more about this fish. The first thing I discovered is that kind of fish should never have been put in the same tank as Darren’s fish. The second thing I discovered is that the bloody thing was pregnant, and within weeks I didn’t have just one fish, I had six fish. Then those fish started breeding with each other and pretty soon, Darren and I were trading with each other the fish that we had bred. Sometimes I’d get a call from him “Hey, have you got any guppies? What about mollies?” And sometimes he’d turn up at my place with a container of fish that I didn’t have room for and didn’t want, but I would take them in any way, fearful that if I didn’t they wouldn’t survive.
On weekend afternoons we would visit aquariums and think about expanding our fishy empires even further.
The most exciting times were when our favourite fish would breed. Darren and I would cluck over the eggs laid by my angel fish, and grumble when the fish ate those eggs, dashing our dreams of tanks and tanks full of beautiful angel fish.
A month or so ago, we jointly came to the realisation that we were both a bit over it and it was time to start downsizing. A week before he died and not for the first time, Darren asked me again if I wanted his big fish tank, knowing full well the answer would be no.
The news of Darren’s sudden, unexpected death has been a massive shock to me. Darren was the friend that I saw most frequently, at least once a fortnight. For most of this year we had slipped into the habit of catching up on a Friday night. I would let him know when I was leaving work and he would leave the front door open for me. A twitch of the upstairs curtain when I pulled up outside confirmed to him that my arrival was imminent and by the time I got upstairs he would be ready with a kiss hello, a hug and smart arse comment.
The second last time I saw Darren, he was unwell with a virus and wouldn’t let me near him, for fear of making me ill. The last time I saw him, a week before he died, he was feeling better so a hello kiss and hug was back on the agenda. If only I had known it would be last time we saw each other. What would I have done if I had known? Would I have held on longer and tighter? Would I have bought him a gift? Would I have stayed longer? Sometimes, we miss the really important moments, or only realise their significance with the benefit of hindsight.
To say I am in shock is an understatement.
I am shocked. I am sad. I am angry. I am bereft.
At times, it feels hard to believe that this has happened, that Darren is gone. And I wonder how on earth I will go on without Darren - my glorious, loud, cranky, smart-arse, funny, loving, bitch of a friend.
I hope there was no pain. I hope you rest in peace. And every time I see someone wearing leggings as pants, I will think of you Darren.
Farewell my dear friend.
