MUSIC

On August 26, 2015 ... 38 year old Jackie Brunck of Orillia Ontario suddenly took her own life. She was ... is ... my cousin.

 

Jackie was an outgoing, energetic, athletic young lady who had a special connection to my music before, throughout and long after I had left the iconic Canadian band Glass Tiger. She was so proud of me ... as was I of her.

 

As a part of the Lesbian community, Jackie was in tough with the usual challenges that the darkness of the world is all too willing to deliver ... but was supported by all of us to overcome the stigmas that come with it.

 

In fact I think my greatest support for her - like the rest of our family including my aunty Carol, her loving mom ... came in the form of me not giving a damn in regards to seeing her in any other light but the one that I 'always' saw in her and loved. Just her beautiful heart. She was just Jackie. A hockey player, she was super tough one minute.. and then a complete "clown" the next, with a softness and vulnerability that everyone was drawn too as well.

 

Although none of us ever really knew, eventually she suffered in silence struggling with mental health issues ... which was perhaps exacerbated by a failed relationship that may have made things worse. Regardless, she took her own life in the worst of ways. It broke our hearts, and we could not help. We were helpless in our inability to see what cannot be seen.

 

A year or so prior to Jackie's death (as fate would have it) I wrote and recorded a new song of mine called "The Girl That Love Forgot". At the time I thought it to be "just another song", but one that I guess I especially loved ... for a number of reasons.

 

When Jackie died, and the story as to her struggle with life was more fully told, it appeared that the song was, for lack of a better description ...almost written "directly for her" ... that is to say, long before the fateful day when she left us.

 

It all seemed very strange to me. Every nuance of the storytelling in "The Girl That Love Forgot" was indeed Jackie's story .... as if I had tripped over a momentary view of the future, grabbed a pen and an acoustic guitar and set about the task of writing the ballad for her, never knowing of course what would happen one day soon.

 

At the time, the song's main character was just an "unknown mystery girl" that I pictured in my mind, which one sometimes does in order to complete a song. "A sad sad girl with a sad sad song" as the lyric states... The mystery girl with the broken heart ... was my cousin Jackie. And nothing in the song ever had to be changed.

 

I am happy to say that the song and accompanying video dedicated to Jackie were just recently released, eventually leading up to today. A day for discussing mental health.

 

In this mini-documentary beautifully put together by Producer Chan Khamphoomee and his team at KHAMP MEDIA, Jackie's story is told from her loving mother - and some of her beloved friends and family.

 

Our hope is that challenged young females facing mental health issues, whether gay or straight - hear the song and embrace the documentary that we have only now begun to really build. Hopefully this mini documentary will grow. And so will the message that Jackie would want the world to hear - through her favourite thing in the world ... Music.

 

Jackie was The Girl That Love Forgot. Love forever... we're all right there with you darling.

 

M