233067
232902

Kelowna  

Bring her brother home

A woman is asking the public for help to bring her brother home for his funeral after his sudden passing last Tuesday.

Kristina Wheeler's brother Daniel had suffered from depression for at least four years, and according to Wheeler, he was on a prescription that wasn't working.

"He had an appointment with the doctor at 9 a.m. that morning," Wheeler said. Daniel never made that appointment.

"By 2 o'clock,... everything was all over Facebook that he was missing. He had left the family home where his fiancé and two children were at and never returned."

His fiancé made the tragic discovery that day that he had taken his own life at their home in Alberta, leaving behind three siblings in the Okanagan, his fiancé and two young children aged one-and-a-half years and three years old.

Daniel came from a Kelowna upbringing, and now his family wants to bring him home for a funeral. Initially, to bring him home in a casket, it would have cost around $12,000. But by going to Alberta to deal with a funeral home there and cremating Daniel, the family is able to bring the cost down to about $7,500.

"The only problem that we're running into is I've been trying to pour some of my savings into this," Wheeler said.

"My savings paid for everybody to go down and get this all organized. And, of course, we all have to go back at the end of the week.... Because that's where we basically have to have the funeral home have him cremated, and then we'll be bringing him home in ash form."

A GoFundMe campaign was set up by a friend in Wheeler's name, with the goal of raising $7,500. So far, the campaign has reached $4,210 as of midnight Monday.

The costs, according to Wheeler, have been a burden on the parents, who Wheeler says never expected to be burying their 23-year-old son. For Wheeler's stepfather, it stings a little more.

"Unfortunately this is not the first son that he's lost," Wheeler said. "He lost his first one 32 years ago, so right now this is bringing a whole lot more. You know, obviously I worry about my parents from this point forward. Their work has graciously already done up the paperwork to put them on medical leave."

As it is, Wheeler says the support that has already come in has been a blessing for the family.

"When we started realizing some of these people had no personal connection to us, that was the greatest blessing," she said. "Families kind of pull together and try to help everybody through things, but when we realized we had strangers in the community that are trying to help us, that was the greatest gift we could have received."

Getting Daniel home to rest in Kelowna, Wheeler says, would have been important for him.

"I don't want above and beyond the total, I don't want any extra. I just hope to achieve what is needed to get him home to rest," she said.

"He didn't like Alberta, he didn't want to be there. He was only there because his fiancé wanted to be there close to her family. So he stayed because of his children. And Alberta is not where my brother wants to rest."



More Kelowna News