Funeral at 12 noon, afterwards at a local hotel, left around 5pm.
Crem was practically full, around 200 people, so glad we went with the larger one. Probably 100 came back afterwards.
Went back to my parents afterwards and had the evening with my them, my boys, brother and uncle & aunt. Home around 10pm and just had an hour or so snuggling on my bed with my boys, talking about and remembering John, listening to the music we had at the funeral (the theme from The Piano, The Fix - Elbow & One Day - Elbow) and just being together.
Five I think I've been at the remembering him with a smile stage ever since he died, which isn't to say I'm not also remembering him with tears, and sometimes both together. But I do feel like I've got this smile deep inside me when I think and talk about me, like I'm holding everything we had there.
I've not cried since I was on my own this morning, before I got up. Ds1, having said he didn't need a hanky, cried through a lot of the service, ds2 just held my hand.
And now, I'm on my own in bed, and I can cry.
It's about control, I hate not being in control, of most things in my life, emotions included. But on my own I can be myself.
I wasn't in control of anything with John, it was like being hit by a steam train. Which is weird as I'd known him, he was my boss, for over a decade when we got together and before that had never thought anything of him, he was just my boss. I've to this day got no idea how on earth it actually happened. But I remember on our first date we sat in a restaurant having lunch, holding hands, and just looking at each other.
It wasn't that he was in control of me, neither of us needed to be, we were just in partnership.
I was myself with John as well. He 'got' me, and all my prickliness, and awkwardness, and defensive layers - and he loved me regardless, he didn't just love me, he adored me.
I miss him so much, and every time I realise I'll never see him again it hits me like a body blow, but my god I'm so very glad we had the time we did, that I loved and was loved like that.
This is what I said...
When things weren't going quite as he wanted, John used to say "it will be alright in the end, and if it's not alright it's not the end yet."
He said to me last February, when we were in Antigua and spending the evening planning our wedding, that he felt like the luckiest man in the world. That he had everything.
A few months later when his cancer was diagnosed he recalled that conversation, saying he thought he'd had everything - and now he did, but not in a good way.
John suffered a lot over the last year, and particularly so over the last few months. He hid it well from almost everyone and tried to carry on with life in his usual cheerful way - helped in no small part by his unfailing ability to stick his head in the sand and ignore reality!
At the end of January it became apparent that reality could be ignored no longer and John retreated into himself. The last couple of months were very hard for both of us, but at the end the medical team were able to overcome John's pain and let him rest.
John died peacefully in my arms, with his DS and DD by his side, surrounded by love.
And in the end, for John, it was alright.
For those of us who loved him, without John it's not alright, but, as John would have said, "if it's not alright it's not the end yet".
Goodbye my love, you will always be in my heart.