Today is a sad day. One month ago today I held my husband's hand as he took his last breath. I told my children that their daddy had passed away, I tried to help my learning disabled child understand that daddy was not coming back.
A week ago we held his funeral. We struggled through my daughter's birthday, Christmas and New Year before we could say our final goodbyes. We had an evening of celebration on Saturday 2nd January filled with laughter and stories, eulogies of hope and pride. His funeral on Monday 4th January was when it hit me. He was not coming back.
My Eulogy for Andy's Memorial Service
We gave Andy a wonderful send off, filled with friends, laughter, music, stories, just as he wished. People travelled from all over the world to be there and it gave the children and I such comfort to see all these fabulous people from so many areas of Andy's life talking and sharing memories. We held a Celebration/Memorial Service at Andy's former Drama School in London on Saturday 2nd January and followed it with his Funeral Service on Monday.
We played many of the songs that Andy had requested and friends sang, read and shared stories of time spent with him, we even had a singalong to Hey Jude at the end of the memorial!
Our children delivered incredible, heartfelt eulogies at the funeral, telling everyone how they would life the life their Dad had prepared them for, full of optimism and hope, fulfilling their potential and seizing the moment - I not have been more proud.
I spoke at both the Memorial Service and at the Funeral and here's the transcript of my speech at the Memorial - it is very lengthy so you may want to grab a cup of coffee before you start reading, it's just indicative of the full life Andy lived. Thank you to everyone who has reached out to our family over these weeks, now we are going to have to learn to live yet another new life, this time the one without Andy.
Daisy has been amazing, just like the rest of the children and we will be releasing some balloons in the next day or so with her so that she can say her own private goodbye, I will also blog on what it has been like helping a child with a learning disability understand that their daddy has died as I have already learned a huge amount on what and what not to do or say.
Daisy has been amazing, just like the rest of the children and we will be releasing some balloons in the next day or so with her so that she can say her own private goodbye, I will also blog on what it has been like helping a child with a learning disability understand that their daddy has died as I have already learned a huge amount on what and what not to do or say.
Steph's Speech for Andy's Memorial Service - 2nd January 2016
Andy and I spoke a lot about
funerals and celebrations, he was determined that his friends who knew him well
and had shared so many experiences had an opportunity to share stories and have
a laugh and reflect on a life well lived.
It was never going to be about mourning or regret, that wasn’t
Andy. The thing he really wanted
you all to know was that he did not lose a battle with cancer. For him it was about optimising the
odds, science, drugs, knowledge a smattering of NLP to give him the longest
survival time. That time was just
over a year. It was in the end less
than he had hoped for but more than we ever thought possible in November 2014
when we were told that he had advanced, incurable colorectal cancer.
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