Someone dies unexpectedly and we want to know why.

Someone dies a peaceful death and while we find solace in the relative fairness of it, especially where someone has suffered, we still want to know why.

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Grief is as important, as intrinsic to this thing called life, the human condition, as all the good stuff that feeds it - the connections, the fun, the sharing of experiences, the solitude; all of that which glues together an infinite complexity.

And so what happens when someone's loss is a terrible wrench, that even when the signs have long pointed to something terribly amiss it leaves us wounded in a way that makes it seem impossible to reconcile their death?

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Suicide does that. It can strike with randomness.

But it can also be foretold in troubling, sometimes unremarkable, signs for weeks or months or years on end, yet knowing what to do to help can leave us feeling hopelessly inadequate.

And it must, at its tragic heart, be seen wholly through that person who will never be able to experience whatever lay ahead of them.

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William White, "Buffalo Bill", Tim White's wild kid "who never shut up", a troubled young man who as a dad "loved his daughter with all his heart".

That Billy White would take his own life would not surprise if seen merely through the prism of the difficult times.

But this would tragically miss the point of the Billy White so loved by those who did - and would do - everything they could to save him.

That he couldn't be saved is even more reason why we all have to keep trying, to continue to support each other, to keep the stories of the Billy Whites alive in order to find that one, elusive piece of the puzzle that might save another from such a fate.

And it is why - even more so in these strange, challenging times of isolation - events such as the Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice are so important, if only for the conversations that help chip away at the troubles that bedevil so many.