Preparing for tomorrow

As I drove to the funeral home with Chrish today, I said how different it is planning a funeral 'on my own'. I feel anything but on my own at the moment as I have family staying, and so much love, support and physical help, but some things I can only do on my own.

When we were planning Noah's funeral Aaron and I did it together.  Aaron put together all of his photos and helped Jay make the DVD clips, while I helped the boys with their talks.  Now I'm doing it on my own,  and as strange as it sounds I'm glad that I've already gone through it once before with Aaron by my side.  If I hadn't done it before and had to plan his funeral all by myself, I know there is no way I could be doing what I'm doing right now.

I can't even compare the passing of Noah to the passing of Aaron. I don't even know what I think myself. In some ways it's easier as the experience of losing Noah has helped me to know what to expect, but it many ways it's so much harder.   I still don't believe it. I'm not sure if I'll ever believe it. I know it's happened, it's just too much to come to terms with it just yet.

When I arrived at the funeral home the funeral director who did Noah's funeral came out straight away to give me a hug.  I cried and told her that Aaron obviously couldn't live without Noah and she said that when the call came through they just couldn't believe it.

Today my brothers and brother in law Alex, and our friend who is our Stake President from our church were my rocks.  They dressed Aaron's body and we got to spend a lot of time together as we touched him, kissed him, cried over him and even laughed.  I'm sure Aaron was loving the fact that Eden and Chrish were wearing his Hawthorn ties and he even got Jared into his pink one!  Jared is not one to wear pink :)

After they dressed him, the boys and I went in to spend some time alone with Aaron's body.  I kind of knew what to expect after dressing Noah after he passed away, and it was the same this time.  He looked so peaceful and beautiful and it's strange to say but he really looked so happy.   We laughed as it looked like he had a little grin on his face, and we stired him about all the grief he was giving us, while he was just smiling.

The boys were so brave and stayed for a long time with him.  Jalen shed lots of tears as he touched and hugged him, while Harri and Kobe just stood back a little and were very quiet.  I didn't want to leave Aaron, especially as I know that I'll only his body one more time tomorrow.  It's so hard not being able to see Noah's face or touch him anymore and now I have to feel that pain with Aaron too.

After dressing his body we went to the church to set up a table with some of Aaron's special things.   Harri helped me choose out his favourite Hawks geurnsey. It's hard to know which one is a favourite, when he has so many!

At the chapel were people setting up hundreds (literally!) of beautiful donated flowers from different florists around town. I'm overwhelmed with the generosity and kindness of so many people right now.   Even though we set up quickly, we spent a lot of time just sitting around together, watching the clips that Jay and I put together of photos of Aaron. It was lucky that I had lots of hankies on hand.





It's hard to believe that tomorrow is his funeral.  It's strange to even type that.  I wish I didn't have to type that.   It's going to be another long night as I sit and write my talk for the funeral tomorrow. I don't want to miss out anything, but know that I could never say enough about how lucky I was to be married to my best friend.