Though not old, Bill Marimaru was already confined to a wheelchair when he came to live at Ron Conn. 

At some stage Bill had suffered a brain injury; he had trouble speaking and had wild mood changes where he would strike out indiscriminately. Bits of his history were pieced together from various official records; it seems he had been raised in boys' homes and later spent time in Mont Park psychiatric hospital.

Bill was a challenge, but many staff grew to love him. As Phill, the manager of Ron Conn when Bill lived there, says: "there's something about the really difficult ones.

"At times, you have feelings that you don't like them - you love them - but maybe not today, and there is emotional turmoil, guilt, for feeling that."
We never underestimate how hard life can be. Bill's had been hard in ways that left him feeling tortured at different moments. Tragically, he could not see beyond those moments to when life would again feel right and worthwhile.

In 2008, he suicided. 

He is the only one of our residents ever to have done so.

It still fills us with sadness. Our fond memories of Bill are shadowed by a lasting regret that he could not find a way to stay with us and play his life out to a natural end.

We played one of his favourite songs, ACDC's Live Wire, at his funeral. Listen to it in his honour. Rest in peace, Bill.