Following our first blog about my dear friend Lan, I thought I would tell you a little about him and what happened after we lost him.
Lan was twenty six the last time I saw him. He had always been a character that was full of life that everyone loved. Little did we know how much he had quietly suffered for a long time. Lan was a musical genius, he loved his family, his friends, music and food. We had always bonded over our love for food (one of the reasons I love to exercise!).
There was a story which has always stuck with me, and that was the time one of his older brothers was trying to learn how to play his mum’s favourite songs on the piano for either Mother’s Day or her birthday. His brother had practiced and practiced this song and had really been struggling with it. Frustrated he took a break and went into the kitchen; when he did, Lan sat by the piano, being much younger and unable to read music and played the song perfectly. Lan then uttered “shhhh” to his other brother, so he wouldn’t tell that him that Lan had cracked it, just from listening. This was Lan. Full of talent, humour, joy and always so humble.
I remember the day I got the call. And when I had to make the call. None of us believed it, it felt like an out of body experience, so surreal, so untrue. So heart-breaking.
That Thursday, we all got together to celebrate his life at one of the local pubs. It started out with just his core friends but word spread and I believe over one hundred of us showed up, easily. We drunk the pub dry, cried, reminisced and shared the pain. At the end of the night, we gathered to take a group picture and ended up singing “There’s only one Lanfranco, one Lanfranco walking along, singing along, walking in a Franco Wonderland”. Here is a snippet of our singing. A core memory.
Lan had a light that some can only dream of and though his was put out early, he lit a light in many of us. Knowing the pain he had endured and knowing he felt there was no way out, we collectively, as his best friends took a hard learnt, lifelong lesson from it. That we had to live, enjoy and learn to cope when life isn’t rosy.
Lan’s family then started a relationship with Calm, Campaign Against Living Miserably. We proceeded to throw ourselves into numerous fundraising events for Calm, Mind and other Men’s Mental Health charities.
To name the ones I remember at the top of my head:
- A group of his closest, completed a cycle Lan had been planning, from London to Denmark (and Harwich for some of us)
- A black tie event at a hotel in North London
- One last concert in his name
- A Mental Health World Cup, which turned into an annual event eventually held at the Arsenal Stadium and the latest raising £42,000 alone. Lan was a football fan
- Multiple obstacle course races
- A 10K run through London
And my latest contribution, our Zumbathon for Man Down Cornwall.
To find out more on some of the fund raisers in memory of Lan see below:
https://designandbuilduk.net/mental-health-football-tournament-raises-42000/
https://www.bigissue.com/news/the-first-mental-health-world-cup-kicks-off-this-weekend/
If you have been affected by this blog or know someone you know is suffering from mental health issues, please see the below links for guidance and support.
https://www.thecalmzone.net/get-support
https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/mental-health-services/where-to-get-urgent-help-for-mental-health/
https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/
If you are under 19: