A mum grieving the loss of her 12-year-old son after he died in a freak accident last month has found an incredible surprise in one of his notebooks.
Kyan Pennell died on January 31 when he got caught between a trailer and a gate at his family’s property in Tuchekoi, southeast of Gympie, Queensland.
According to Yahoo News , the family was left heartbroken.
Kyan, who had a passion for classical music, was teaching himself classical piano in the months before his death - and unbeknownst to his parents, had started writing his own composition.
Now, after finding an unfinished song in a blank notebook, his mother Amanda Bierley has started a campaign to bring his music to life ahead of his funeral - scheduled to take place on Sunday.
She never got to hear his piece, but has appealed to musicians on Facebook to play what he has written and send the family a recording.
In a post on Facebook, she said that Kyan was composing a piece which he had categorised as a “modern classical”.
"I never heard what he was composing. Is there anyone that can read music and play it and send it to us?” she asked. “It would mean the world to us to hear his composition."
Kyan had wanted to be a concert pianist, Amanda said and had spent “every waking hour” on the piano he scraped and saved to buy.
Speaking on 4BC radio, Amanda said the family was hoping the finished piece could offer “just a little insight” into Kyan’s mind.
She said Kyan was “so much more than the way he died”, and said she wanted people to remember him for who he was in his short 12 years - “full of life, with a beautiful mind”.
In a tribute on Facebook, she said: "He was diagnosed with Aspergers and ADHD and used that superpower to become an incredibly beautiful and unique human who just wanted to learn and excel at everything he could, about everything there was.
"Piano was his calling, he was 12, and had 7 months of learning, teaching himself music theory, performance and composition.”
He had committed multiple classical pieces to memory, she said, as well as some modern pieces.
However, she claimed he had only learned the modern pieces to lure in new listeners and educate them with the beauty of classical music.
Amanda carried on to appeal for musicians to complete the music as Kyan had intended, with “repeated bits, a changed tempo and with light and shade”.
"He imagined it to be performed by wind and string instruments, and of course his beloved piano," she continued on Facebook.
"He would have been so chuffed that all these wonderful people are now playing his music. Little did he know he was actually composing his own funeral song.”
Amanda’s Facebook post has attracted hundreds of responses and shares.
The family have received some “lovely renditions”, Amanda said, but she continued to encourage anyone to contribute to his “beautiful unfinished work” and hopes more come through before his funeral.
She said she was “extremely humbled” by people’s responses, which had helped him see “beauty through adversity”.
According to ABC reports, Kyan’s song would be performed and recorded by 16 members of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, with the aim of having it complete for Sunday’s funeral.
Meanwhile, a GoFundMe campaign has been launched by a family friend to "help the beautiful Pennell family out during this difficult time".
