Outside, it was a miserable day, and the sun was given no chance. Yet inside Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church at Shortland, there was warmth and love – and sadness – as family, friends and strangers farewelled Bernard Sessions.
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Mayfield’s Man in the Doorway was the Man in Memories at the funeral service. Or, as Bernie Sessions’ family called it, a celebration of his life.
Bernie Sessions had battled paranoid schizophrenia for years. Last week, he took his own life. He was aged 45. He left behind parents, three brothers and a sister, an extended family, and a community asking why.
Addressing her big brother directly in her eulogy, Jenny Allen said, “I wish I could storm into the lives of the characters in your mind and tell them to piss off. I’d stick up for you like I was the older sibling, then I’d say, ‘It’s OK, Bern, ignore them, they’re liars’.”
Out the front of the church was a large cube comprising 27 blue milk crates, in tribute to Bernie Sessions’ favourite seat outside his unit beside Maitland Road. A family friend, Darren Eagleton, had collected the crates from the fruit markets and arranged them outside the church, “so everyone would know who was here”.
“And if all the seats were taken inside, people could have grabbed one of these and sat on it,” he explained.
The milk crates weren’t needed, but about 100 mourners were inside the church. Some had known Bernie since he was a boy.
“He was just a little bit of a tiger,” said Heather, whose children had gone to school with the Sessions kids.
A few of the mourners knew Bernie only to the extent that so much of Newcastle knew him. He was the man who waved from his doorway as they walked or drove past. Now the doorway was empty, something – and someone – was missing from the order of their daily lives. A couple expressing their condolences to Jenny Allen explained that being greeted by Bernie was part of their jogging routine.
In her eulogy, Mrs Allen thanked the community “for taking the time to acknowledge the existence of a person who society so regularly renders invisible”.
Through her words, and in a photo presentation set to The Beatles’ All You Need Is Love, Jenny Allen told the story of her brother: the soccer player, the artist and the the music lover. However, the hymns played gently on acoustic guitar before the service may not have been quite what Bernie would have chosen. His favourite song, according to his sister, was the blues rock anthem One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.
And she talked about her brother’s mental illness, and how it had cocooned him in his own world but helped him make a difference in the world.
“The one thing that we thought held you back was the one thing that propelled you forward into the hearts of others,” she said.
Father Dominic Carrigan reminded the congregation of the advice Bernie Sessions gave to a boy who brought him a doughnut each week: “Always be kind and good to others.” Looking at the casket before him, Father Dom said, “That’s his message to us today.”
The one thing that we thought held you back was the one thing that propelled you forward into the hearts of others
- Jenny Allen, Bernie Sessions' sister
In thickening rain, the mourners waved farewell as the casket was driven away, and a few passing drivers blew their horns, just as they would have to The Man in the Doorway.
While Father Dom had posed the questions, “What happens now? What happens to Bernie?” and offered spiritual answers, the Sessions family are determined to turn their son and brother’s memory into greater awareness and practical changes to help those with mental illness and their loved ones.
“At least something good can come out of something bad,” said Chris Sessions, one of Bernie’s older brothers.
Yet the family knows change will be hard, and that the most difficult part will be accepting their beloved Bernie is gone. As Jenny Allen told her brother in her eulogy, “Your struggle is over. Not for us though.”