So someone who is blessed has perception and understanding.

This is a eulogy for Desmond Freedom Sky Rousselle. 24 years old - seems so short a time, yet I could stand here and talk on and on and on.

Personally, I watched him from being the cutest little guy, with both mischief and innocence written all over him, grow to be a self-educated young man, eager and active to develop his many talents.

From early childhood on, Desi assumed the hat of making others laugh. It was such an intimate part of his character it just flowed out of him no matter the situation. If I were to start in on a few examples now I could be up here till our time was up and Diane wouldn't get to complete the service.

Always the class clown, Desi would lighten the mood wherever he went. Being the class clown made it hard on his teachers. We all struggled somewhat with what to do with this guy who, no matter how much he tormented us, was impossibly adorable.

He got this idea from Jim Carrey (click on picture)

Des was just one of those free spirits not able to restrain himself to the 9-4 discipline of a classroom, and so he left school in his mid teens. He did some correspondence and he did some study and got his grade 12 through the GED program. But I would hardly call that Desi's education. He was truly self-educated and his natural curiosity took him over a varied and fascinating terrain.

Over the years I've been given a lot of art by children. There is very little of it I have kept. I do, however, have one of Desi's cards to Neil when they were just little guys. Desi always drew. He was at it when he was 3. He was accomplished at sketching, water colours, acrylics; he would use any medium - pencil, pen, coloured pencil, charcoal - whatever he had.

He did great caricatures, his father being a favourite subject.

And for years the Rousselle Christmas card was a Desi cartoon.

Although he was also a musician and loved music, he told his mom his drawing and painting was his favourite thing.

He played guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, banjo, accordion, trumpet, harmonica, trombone, violin - he could play tambourine, moroccas, triangles and cow bells. Recently, Tamara gave him a digeridoo which he was learning to play.

In picking up a musical instrument he could make it make a decent sound within about 5 minutes of fooling around with it. Except for a few lessons on guitar, drums and trumpet, all of this was self-learned. Desi helped out at the school with music class a few times. He even taught his mom to play drums.

Desi loved all kinds of music. He started out with metal music, then got into jazz, then blues and the old time bluesmen, then alternative, twangy country music, East Indian rappers, any kind of ethnic music. He loved Chinese music, Tom Jones and Stompin' Tom Connors.

There are hours and hours of tapes Des recorded of his music. Which he also figured out how to do himself on a little four-track recorder.

Desi wrote music, lyrics and stories.

I thought he would make someone a darn good little wife when he taught himself how to sew and bake.

He wanted to make himself a buckskin suit so he learned how to sew and made himself a pancho out of the towels at home.

He taught himself how to bake and cook. I especially liked his bannock and his Rick Rousselle bread: French-Canadian Crusty White! He was not a gourmet cook, he liked to make things from the Cowboys Cook Book.

He was a fearless eater and tried fried worms fresh from the back yard, octopus, squid, rabbit, grasshopper legs and even dog.

One could call Desi a history buff. The past was a constant interest for him.

The Old West in particular was a subject of fascination to Des, and he studied it extensively. He was very knowledgeable on the Indians, cowboys, gold miners and, of course, buffalo.

Guns were interesting. He got himself a Fire Arms Certificate and owned several rifles and hand guns. He belonged to a shooting range and he even went hunting a few times, bagging at least one goose.

So many times walking into the Rousselle's house Desi would be at the kitchen table with library books stacked everywhere. He had all sorts of history books, art books, bird books so he could identify the birds he saw, plant books, histories of the different Indian tribes in North America, how to butcher game, flower books, drawing faces, animals and nudes. It was always interesting to look through his stack of reading material.

I witnessed his first love - with my sister Jaylene when he was about four or five and she was about 16 or 17. She, of course, found him adorable and loved him right back. She would ask him if he wanted to go for a walk and he'd roll his eyes and say yes. When she had gone home from visiting me he would ask me where she was and how far away Kamloops was.

A little more recently he fell for a Korean girl who was in Vancouver learning English. So Desi set out to learn Korean. Using books, tapes, a night school conversational Korean class, and the lady at the corner store, he learned to read, write and speak Korean in a fairly short time. Every object in the house had a big Korean label on it. He and Neil went to Los Angeles to visit Omar and he found a Korean radio station to listen to. Omar says there is a button on their radio still programmed to that station.

He rounded off his Korean study by going to Korea for three months last year.

Desi made his living various ways. It was never the most important thing going on in his life. He swept up Nat Bailey Stadium one season; he delivered fliers; had his own window washing company, which is a story all by itself; he picked mushrooms; was a barista at Starbucks and was a roadside shrimp salesman. The shrimp salesman was likely his best job. He made pretty good money, but mostly it put him on the road. He travelled all over BC several times, lots of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and even into Washington State. For Des it was always an adventure and there were great stories.

Desi was eager to travel and to observe the world. He went up to the Yukon in 1997 to experience the longest day of the year in the Land of the Midnight Sun.

He travelled to Mount Rushmore, he's been to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Desi also loved wildlife and had a reciprocal affinity with it where it seemed to love and respect him right back.

The only time I have ever seen a snake in Vancouver was the summer Desi was like the Pied Piper of Snakes. He wasn't very old, maybe 5 or 6, and he found snakes everywhere - in his yard, in my yard, in a vacant lot, walking down the street - they were just everywhere for Desi. He, of course, brought them all home. Judie had so many snakes at her house it was getting ridiculous. Then they started having babies. He released them all eventually.

At Harold's farm in Northern Alberta, where Desi went yearly for about six years, he one time found and hatched some duck eggs. He looked after the little ducklings and they followed him about like they thought he was their mother.

Desi studied wildlife and then went and found it. A lot of his art is natural scenes. Whether trying to name the funny looking birds at the park or feeding crabs to the barracuda while snorkeling in Malaysia, you could count on Desi to investigate.

Desi always took the time to smell the roses.

People were forever interesting to Desi. He would observe people closely and he could easily get into communication with just about anyone. He learned a lot that way and people remembered him fondly. He had a wide diversity of friends for such a young man.

He was a talented mimic and could imitate just about any accent and any person.

Little child to old man, Desi could almost always find something to admire in any person. He loved people and they loved him right back.

Desi loved his family and very openly showed it. He would hug any of them anywhere and any time he wanted to. I have a lot of memories of him with his arms around his mom.

It seems kind of funny to say, but I always felt secure knowing Neil was with Desi. Those two got into so much trouble together - and some of it was serious - but they kept the lines between the two of them clean and Desi's affinity for Neil was so sincere I knew he would never purposely hurt him. So even though I was painfully aware they might do something totally stupid or something I didn't think was okay, it was less scary and easier to take knowing Desi was there and he loved Neil and would watch out for him.

So, thank you Desi for being a part of my life and being such a true friend to my son, for giving your joy and love so freely to so many.

There are a lot of people here who are really going to miss you, man.

I expect for you only the best as you start out on this, yet one more adventure.

With my love,

Jenny Jaehrling