The Day We Met

The Day We Met Part 12

   A month has passed since Julian's passing, school was shut down for the rest of the school year, because it was unknown just how long the investigation would take. I saw online that a memorial was taking place in memory of Julian, and it was in just a couple hours, so I asked Aaron if he would drive me to the funeral home, so I could go pay my respects to the family, and any friends Julian may have had.

   After I got ready, Aaron drove me down to the funeral home, where to my surprise, a grand total of five cars were in the parking lot. Three of those cars were the employees who worked there, and the other two, I thought were either Julian's family, or people who had come to pay respects. Aaron and I both went inside the funeral home, where one of the employees lead us to where the service was taking place. We knew we weren't early, so we couldn't understand why no one else had shown up.

   When we went inside to wait for the service to start, the only three people there, were Julian's mom, his dad, and his older brother Josh. The casket, which was just basically a wooden box, was kept closed for obvious reasons. I cautiously approached Julian's family, expecting to be greeted by anger, and shouting, but that wasn't what happened at all.

   "Hello young man." Julian's dad said, "Are you here for the service?" he asked.

   "Yes sir." I replied, wanting to be polite, "I'm very sorry for your loss."

   "Thank you." Julian's dad said, "But honestly, we expected it."

   "What do you mean?" Aaron asked, "You mean Julian told you he was going to do what he did? If you knew it was going to happen, why didn't you prevent it?"

   "We tried." Julian's father replied, "We tried hiding the gun he used, we tried hiding the bullets, but somehow, he always found them. Then he kept talking about how he was going to choose when it was his time to go. No one is here but us, because Julian didn't have, nor did he want any friends. He chose to be a recluse, we just couldn't change him."

   "What about his schooling?" I asked.

   "Julian hated school with a passion." Julian's dad said, "He had his times where he would go, but he chose not to do any of his work in any of his classes, not caring that he was failing miserably because of it. We tried punishing him, but that didn't work. We tried home schooling him, but the home schooling teachers would quit on us, because Julian would just walk out on them, refusing to do anything they asked him."

   "I'm guessing changing schools didn't work either?" Aaron asked.

   "You'd be correct." Julian's dad replied, "He didn't care that he was in a new school. We tried four times changing schools, figuring he would get better, but it didn't do any good. He just continued to do what he did."

   Then Josh, Julian's brother blurted out, "Well, maybe if you'd been better parents to him, I wouldn't be saying goodbye to my younger brother right now! This is BOTH yours and mom's fault! You guys SUCK as parents, and I can't believe I'm related to either of you!" then Josh got up, and walked out of the funeral home. His mother tried to go after him, but Josh had left by the time she got to the door.

   Then Julian's mom came back, "Just so you know Mike, we don't blame you for Julian's death, we don't know where we went wrong, but Julian just didn't enjoy life. He didn't want to be here. We don't know what was bothering him, because he never told us." 

   "It sounds to me." Aaron said, "Like you guys should have been more involved with Julian's life, then maybe he'd still be here. It sounds to me like Josh may be right, you guys didn't get involved enough, to stop your son from ending his life. Life itself is short to begin with, you should have taken more time to understand what Julian may have been going through, even if he didn't open up right away."

   Soon after, we left the funeral home, and went back to the house. We didn't know how much of an impact we made on Julian's parents, but we hoped we gave them something to think about. When we got back to the house, we went inside, where we were surprised by Jamie and Sean. They wanted to know how the funeral service went. They were surprised when we told them that no one but Julian's family was there.

   Sean, Jamie, Aaron and I talked more, before it was bedtime once again. We thought that the worst of what was going on was over. But we didn't have to be at school for more drama to take place, because it would turn out, that social media would be the worst place, that drama would unfold about Julian's death, only this time, things would be aimed at me.

TO BE CONTINUED........................................................................................................................