Your Memorial Service

Today is the day of your Memorial Service - and just about an hour and a half before we officially get started at 4pm. It's a beautiful day - thank-you if you had anything to do with that - and hopefully it will stay that way and the winds will stay calm through the afternoon and into the evening. We've set everything up downstairs, using Unit 4 as the bathroom, Unit 3 for all the electronics - TV for showing the photos and Rhonda's new Bose iPod system for the music, and Unit 2 for food and drinks. We've (Robin, Diana, Rhonda, the kids and I) have put all the chairs and tables from the Units around the place downstairs and it all looks very nice. Once we have the electronics and flowers and glasses set up I'll take a picture as I expect this is a memory worth having photos of. Wasn't sure if we should take pictures during the more official aspects of the afternoon, but if I can get Joanne to take some...

It's been a funny mix of emotions for me today - to be expected I suppose - I'm not entirely sure how I feel exactly. Yesterday was a bit more unsettling for me, so I guess I'm more settled today, as I picked up your ashes. I was a bit apprehensive doing so (Rhonda decided she should come with me as she felt that I shouldn't do that on my own - I was glad that she was there) but once I got to the Funeral Home and actually saw the containers with your ashes in them I was much better than I thought I would be. We looked at little urns and I've decide that I would like a little bit of your ashes to keep with me so have decided to have them put a bit of you in a little urn. Rhonda helped me pick out one which we thought seemed like a 'John' urn - it's a light brown marble and it's got quite a lot of weight to it, and it fits into the palm of my hand. Rhonda thought if I ever needed to protect myself I could do quite a lot of damage with it hitting someone - you're forever my protector.

I've been 'practicing' your eulogy - I hope that you like it. It's pretty challenging to try to sum up someone's very full life in a few pages of words, but I feel like I've been able to provide a well-rounded 'snapshot'. and the pictures are really lovely - although I had to cull so many of them because it was just too long. Diana had the idea that I put all the photos together on CDs for each of the kids - I love the idea so will do that for them as there are so many great photos of you. Plus I'm hoping to get more photos from friends and family over the next few months. You know when my last laptop crashed, we lost so many photos - pretty much all of the ones from our last visits to the States in 2004 (Hawaii) and 2005 (Virginia) which is a bit disappointing - I'm hoping that friends and families will either have copies or some of their own from that time.

So... how am I feeling? Still not sure... I guess still a bit apprehensive about this afternoon, and in a lot of ways I guess I'm looking forward to being on the other side of things. But hopefully once people begin to arrive, I will relax and be able to just 'go with the flow'. I just have that really slightly raised heartbeat, and what feels like the beginning of a headache but I think it's just the uncertainty and anxiety associated with an event like this. Plus, I really have no idea how many people will be here, or if there'll be too much (or not enough) food and drink for everyone. The other thing is that it feels like today is another changing point - I've told myself that I need to get back into / find my routine again after the Memorial Service. And while I won't be going back to work until after we come back from the States I just feel like I need to start 'doing things' again. So... I've been making a mental list (which will become a written list) of things that need to be done around here and I guess I'll just start doing them. But, I know from here it all really changes - that you really aren't coming back, that I really do need to learn how to do this on my own, and I need to figure out who I am without you...

It's a weird feeling...