Noah's Memorial Service

Yesterday was a tough day with Noah's school memorial service being held. Even though it was hard, it was also very special as the school did such a beautiful job of remembering Noah and celebrating the time that they had with him at school.

It was so nice to have so many parents come along to it and to also have family and friends with us as well.  Thanks Makayla and Alison for taking photos for us.  It was nice to be able to just be a part of the day and not have to worry about taking pics.

The memorial started off with the Principal talk about Noah's time at Punchbowl Primary including which teachers he had each year and all the things he liked to do, and then a group of kids from his class sang 'We can sing a rainbow'.  It was very emotional, especially as one of the boys who was getting up to sing was so upset that he couldn't sing and had to sit back down with the class instead.


Three children then shared a very special book that was all about Noah.  Each class had painted a very special page onto canvas all about Noah and it was presented so lovely in a special book with stitching.

Each class had written such lovely things about Noah which I will share later on.   Aaron and I were then asked to come up to be presented the book to keep and I spoke about Noah's time at the school, and how happy we were that he was able to go to such a wonderful school (I will also share that later on). I held it together right until the last sentence.  I was really aware of making it a happy time for the kids as so many were already upset, but it was hard to hold back the tears, especially when so many children, parents and teachers were all ready quite emotional.


The slideshow that Jalen made for the funeral was really long, so for the memorial service we just had one song. 

Everyone then headed outside to officially open up Noah's memorial garden which we had helped to plant out the day before.  One child from each class was chosen to represent their class in holding and releasing a balloon before the opening of the garden. Once again Noah turned the weather on for us.

They even had a special 'family balloon' for us to release with the kids. Attached to the strings of the balloons were special messages for Noah or things that the children had remembered about him.

They played the song 'Somewhere over the rainbow' while the children held their balloons and as the chorus came on they released them all at once which was so beautiful and also very sad at the same time as the whole school was silent as we watched them float up. 

Jay was really upset and probably the most upset he had been since Noah passed away. 

It was so hard for everyone and all the teachers had tears in their eyes, even though everyone was trying to be strong for the children so that they didn't get too upset.  We caught the balloon release and also the boys cutting the ribbon to officially open 'Noah's Garden' on video.

The boys were excited to be able to cut the ribbon together. 

They also got to be the first people to sit on 'Noah's Remembering Chair' which was painted bright yellow.  The Assistant Principal joked that she couldn't lower herself to putting brown stripes on it for Aaron :) 

 

 

 It was so nice to have family and friends there with us too.  

 

 

We are missing Di a lot, and know how hard she is finding not having Noah to work with at home or at school. It's hard to imagine how much Di's life has also changed since Noah has been her main source of work for the past seven years, and she is just like one of the family. 

I was looking at this photo which Makayla took, and after I cropped it I realised how much it is like our usual blog headers, but without Noah's wheelchair. It made me sad to see how different our family is now, but I love that Noah's Remembering Seat is a part of it still though.  

We love Noah's Memorial Garden and it is right in the middle of the school, so we know we will be seeing the flowers bloom in it all year round and will be using the seat many times to sit and think about Noah's time at such a great school. 

Afterwards we headed to the park for some lunch and a play together.

It was really nice that Makayla could come as she wasn't able to come to Noah's funeral as she was away in Queensland at the time.   I think it was still a really special way for her to be able to say goodbye to Noah in a way.

We are so grateful that school would want to do something so wonderful for Noah and our family, and are now feeling a bit of relief that we have three big things behind us.  It's been a hard three weeks with the funeral, the Make a Wish Run and the memorial service, but we are so glad that others have been able to celebrate Noah's life with us in such different but special ways.