


On March 14, 2019, Troy, a former classmate contacted me quite out of the blue, to ask if I might be interested in writing his story, resulting in an immediate flashback to 1987, our grade ten year together at L.C.S.S. in
Lake Cowichan, British Columbia, Canada.
I remember viewing Troy as a strong, silent type of teenager; he was often serious and straight-faced, but I didn’t even wonder why. We travelled in the same social circles, yet we didn’t really know each other very well.
That was about to change.

Still waters ran deep:
"...Clouds pull together into the funnel and race across the land, hail and wind. Most duck for cover, some raise their arms and welcome the force and get caught up in the spiral, topsy turvy, to be released unceremoniously into the epicentre..." Troy Eklund

In early April of 2025, I received a sad text message from Troy’s sister, Sonja, letting me know that he'd been
found deceased in his hotel
room just the day before.
If I had the opportunity to say a few words to Troy, it would look like this, "Rest easy now, and I will always love the time we spent together working on this, my friend. You are finally free and I know, in the depths of my soul, that you’ve finally found the peace you were searching for."
If I had the opportunity to say a few words to his mom, the likelihood is great that I’d spend the rest of my life in jail.