I had just walked in to my place of work when someone told me to phone home urgently.

I immediately rang my wife who answered the phone in a near-hysterical state. She informed me that her brother had been found dead that morning. He had apparently died of carbon monoxide poisoning in his car.

What a blow!

I drove home immediately and took my wife over to her parents house. Her father was at the hospital formally identifying his son but her mother and sister-in-law were there and the grief was tangible to all there.

If Salvador Dali could have written the script for this part of my life he would not have done his surrealism justice. I felt totally helpless in this situation so, after doing my best to offer comfort to the bereaved, went to break the news to my children and then take them to their paternal grandparents for the night.

It was not an easy task to explain to a 12 and 9 year old what had happened and little did I realise how much it would affect the elder of the two, Claire. She had come to think of her uncle as a brother and they were very close. How do you explain how a 27 year old had decided that this life was not for him? I think the words I chose to tell the kids, and the subsequent care I gave them, was totally inadequate but I cannot change that now.

I went to see Ian at the chapel of rest, he looked peaceful. I went on my own as I felt a bit of an intruder in the pain that the family was going through.

Yet I was sincerely bereft by his departure. I shed a lot of tears for that young man - more than I shed at the subsequent death of my mother. That will be explained in due course.

My wife and I were the last people to see I an alive. He had come along with us for a few drinks and then driven off home - but he never arrived.

I had worries that people may attach some of the blame for his death on us because of this but he was never happy on this plane.

He had attempted to kill himself via an overdose previously and was diagnosed as being serious in his attempt by a psychiatrist. He was at peace now but he had left so much pain behind.

To this day his father is suffering and is prone to bursting into tears. He was a man that had solid foundations but these had been undermined by his sons' actions. And he loved him so much...