RIP my love

Thank you everyone. Each and every message has been incredible. Saw the undertaker today. She was a lovely understanding lady. I've chosen the coffin, flowers, Urn and a symbol for the obituary which is a beautiful heart. Very plain, very simple but thats how Sofia like things, no fancy this or that, just plain and simple. I asked the lady if I'd be allowed to put a tshirt in the coffin with Sofia, a picture that her little nephew drew and a letter that I will write. She didn't see any problem with that.

Every time I went back to Cyprus to see parents or to deal with whatever was needed in Cyprus, she always took out one of my worn t-shirts out of the washing basket and had it next to her when she went to bed, so she could get the body scent of me, the scent of my deodarnt and scent of my afershave. It gave her a sense of safety. I just feel she would like me doing that.

The local garage is where Sofias dad worked for a few years but left on medical grounds 5 years ago. They loaned me one of their cars for a few days so drove down her favourite road yesterday, a lovely country lane where everything is so green and beautiful. We always called it the prison route as there is a prison on that route, There is a small dip halfway down where she always liked it when I approached it at speed, to turn her stomach upside down. Done that yesterday and turned to the passenger seat and told her that she would have enjoyed that one.

Preliminary date for funeral will be on 14th July. The undertakers will get me a list of headstones so I can put one in the memorial garden to give her an identity. I will move back to Cyprus as there is nothing left for me in Sweden, but the plan in to come back to Sweden on the anniversary of her death every year to visit her and to sit with her.

 

Thank you everyone for the incredible generousity in the gofundme which has been set up to help me. I am speechless at how kind you all are.

Had her funeral on Friday, it was a small and intimate one which is what Sofia would have prefered. The cremation will be in anything between 1-3 weeks after the funeral. We will be burying the urn and have arranged for the cheapest plaque possible until we can get enough money to pay for a proper headstone. Though the service was in Swedish (I didn't expect anything different) it was a beautiful service. The vicar - Nina Sagovinter (I was told her surname translated to English is Fairytalewinter) pulled me to one side after the funeral to tell me in English what she had said which was nice of her.

Sofias cousin Patrik went to the church early so he can take photos of the church, churchgrounds and the inside of the church and coffin. He emailed them to me yesterday and they were nice pictures which I will treasure. Most of the service, to be honest was a blur, so the pictures will hopefully help me.

Been going through Sofias things today which is very painful to do. Put most of her clothes in a suitcase. Gone through her jewellery and have kept the things she wore, the rest I will give to her mum. I found a load of her childhood stuff, but that doesn't have any sentiment to me so again, Sofias mum will appreciate it more than me, and it's only right I think. Our TV, home theatre etc I will give to her parents as to take it back to Cyprus will cost too much. Estimating that I will be taking 5 suitcases to Cyprus, so will have to use a 3rd party company to send most of it. Alot of the companies I called don't do Sweden to Cyprus, the ones that do charge extortionate prices. The cheapest I found can do it for around £600ish for 3 suitcases. I guess it is what it is and have to pay it. Will be able to do 2 suitcases with Norwegian. I enquired to Norwegian if I book 2 seats, can I take 2 suitcases on each (I explained the situation to them). They said no, I can only have a maximum of 2 suitcases regardless of how many seats I book. I'm still debating on whether to book anyway as I have a UK passport with my name of George Georgiou and a Cyprus EU id card which means I can travel within the EU with it with the name of Giorgos Georgiou. Tempted to try but also a little scared, just in case.

The garage where Sofias dad worked years ago has loaned me a car for 3 weeks which is very kind of them. Yesterday I spent most of the day driving to places that myself and Sofia used to drive to, crying my eyes out with the memories. I suppose it didn't help listening to slow depressing songs.

Sorry, enough of my wafflling!!!