“His smile was like 1,000 rays of sunshine. He was exotic, always up for a laugh and he had a great sense of the ridiculous,” said John Schuster, describing his son Niccolai. “He was the love of our lives.”
“He called me the Bull,” Mr Schuster’s father told the funeral mass in Rathgar, Co Dublin. “I would walk in the door from work and he would lift his head from the PlayStation and say, ‘Hi Bull’. All you had to do was look at his face and the world seemed so much better. Oh my God, he was so special.”
The three members of Mr Schuster’s immediate family – his mother Graziella, his father and his brother Alexei – stood together at the Church of the Three Patrons and each paid tribute to the young man.
“Alexei and Nicc were so close they were inseparable, they went to matches together, played the PlayStation, soccer, rugby and just loved being together. It was an unshakeable bond,” said Mr Schuster.
“When Alexi got the bad news he was sitting at the kitchen table. He jumped up and raced into the garden, with his hands held high and looking into the sky, he screamed with all his might: ‘I love you, Nicc’.”
Mr Schuster continued: “In 2014 Nicc and I set up Beachwood transition year soccer team for Alexei. I was manager, but only in name, and Nicc was coach. There was no doubt in his mind about who called the shots – he sacked me three times.”
He told the mourners that “Nicc’s adoring mother, Graziella, put every last fibre of her body into making his life happy and fulfilling. As they say in Kerry, she doted on him. She loved him to bits and Nicc could do no wrong in her eyes, no matter what mischief he got up to.”
Alexei told the congregation he and his brother were best friends who did everything together. “I was so, so proud of Nicc. I used to hear great stories about him and I would always try to be like him.”
Ms Schuster told the congregation her son “has brought nothing but joy to us and everyone he met”. Family was of great importance to him, she said.
She added that one of the easiest things to give a child is roots, the most difficult thing to give them is wings. “They are equally important and John and I gave Niccolai both.”
