Hard Decisions

This is a open and honest journal, this post may contain things which could be a trigger to some people regarding death and funeral planning.

Nothing about losing a parent is easy, nothing about losing anyone is either. There have been so many hard decisions to make. Starting on the day my Dad passed, we had to decide when to leave the hospital and know that he would still be there, on his own, and we would be unable to get to him. How long to leave Mum on her own on that day after she told us she didn't want any of us to stay at hers the night. What time to arrive back at Mums the next day. 

Decisions have taken up a lot of our time since then. Who needs to be told and who is telling them. Where the funeral will be held. Where we will gather afterwards. Coffin choice, coffin lining choice, what Dad will be wearing, do we want to see him in the funeral home, songs that we want, readings, hymns, flowers. Its been a never ending 3 weeks of questions and decisions. All of these questions would be so easy to answer if it wasn't for the fact we are preparing for the funeral of one of the people we love the most in the world. We just had to go through them one at a time, step by step. For a start, we all knew the colour theme we wanted. Pink. It was my Dads favourite colour, we looked at hundreds of photos of him and in the majority of them he was wearing a shade of pink. This answered some questions. Coffin lining, the colour we would all wear on the day, the colour of the flowers, the colour of the order of service. 

The easiest decision that I've not struggled to make is what Dad will be wearing, that is his Christmas jumper. He loved Christmas so much, it was without a doubt his favourite time of year. He always loved it when the decorations were up, Christmas24 was his favourite tv channel, he loved that we would all get together and spend a lovely festive time together. So when it came to the hard day we had to open his wardrobe and choose, I said it had to be his Christmas jumper and Mum and my sister both agreed.

We have sat and looked and endless piles of photographs and had to choose the ones we wanted to go on the order of service. That was so difficult as he never took a bad picture. Always a happy smiling, beautiful face. Flowers we have gone for the ones that look like we could've picked them from his garden. 

I hate that we have had to make all these choices but I am happy that the day is going to be a celebration of him. I know it will be devastating to say goodbye to him for the final time but I know we have chosen everything that he likes. There won't be many of us there but it will all be people that genuinely cared about him.

It still doesn't feel real. I am sat here listening to music and Queen, Love of My Life has just started playing. I am sat here sobbing as I didn't realise how much relevance the words have to me right now. He was the love of my life and he has left us. The first man I ever loved has gone. My heart is broken.