Adam

Dear Adam,

y'know, I didn't know you inside out, but I found you to be helluva interesting and funny. A sweet boy-next-door with a corny sense of humour.

Although most of the time we spent crapping on about well, crap, I did actually manage to get to know you a little. Not well, but a little. Enough that my ears pricked up every time I heard you were able to make it out with us. Even though you severely disappointed me in your piking the Saints and Sinners because your bald cap looked horrid. You Piker.

The time we 1st met certainly set the tone, when we met at the unnamed bar underneath the Martini Bar, you perched on a bar stool, happy and high and certainly crapping on and on and on.

Or the time in Bimbos where you and the Baker St Boys would only ever order one flavour of pizza, and eyeball a waitress. We sat there cracking up at silly things like trapdoors under you bed, and donkeys beneath. About your "website address" which was actually the URL of a famous porn star.

Or in Port Melbourne rubbernecking a certain elusive senorita in a red top.

Somehow, I managed to figure out that contrary to all the crap you spouted, you actually were a very nice, intelligent guy with a pretty funny sense of humour.

***

I attended your funeral this morning.

I listened to all the eulogies and laughed. Most spoke of what a beautiful person you were, putting your brother's life before your own, your intelligence and wit even at a young age, your humble overachieving ways, your propensity for lemons, capsicum and olives, and your pumpkin buying antics, just to show one pumpkin for your backyard- overgrown with pumpkin vines.

and of course, they spoke of the side I knew better. The Adam who just blatantly spoke a lot of crap.

***

This is not the best picture of you. But it shows you as I remember you. Happy and high, and ready to tell me some utterly useless piece of info.

***

On the way to your funeral, I saw a playground filled with yellow flowers - flowers of a creamy pale almost buttercup yellow, with fragile petals like tiny wings. When I first arrived in Australia 8.5 years ago, I thought they were the most beautiful things I'd seen. And on my way to see you again, they were the 1st flowers of spring I'd set eyes upon, the first time I'd seen then in years.

imagine my surprise when I found out your parents had requested wildflowers to be laid upon your casket. I chose tiny white ones.

on the way back to the tram stop, I stopped to pick a tiny purple flower with the intention of pressing it, but it didn't last the trip. I guess all I'll have to remember you by are girls, donkeys and trapdoors. Somehow I think you'd enjoy all this. The photo of you happy and high, and memories of crazy topics spoken about.

One of your great loves took you away, on one of the most beautiful stretches of scenery in the world. I'm glad you left doing something you were passionate about. I hear you went quickly too. Thank you for being a part of my life Adam, you were pretty cool. and no, I still haven't checked out the website yet. Sorry dude.