Why didn't I say I love you one more time, that's what I find myself asking. I don't use those words enough sometimes, not wanting to use them just for the sake of it, but then sometimes you find out your too late to say them once more.
Sometimes people come into your life and have the biggest influence on you, you may grow to idolise them or love them, they may just come into your life because they marry someone from your family.
Aaron King came into our family by marrying my sister Lisa, he sure shook our family up even if he did look like a boy. I grew to love Aaron as more than my brother in law, he became one of my closest friends, someone to turn to if I needed anything at all, someone you could trust and someone who I could love.
I came down to Tasmania from Sydney last week needing a recharge of body and mind and Lisa and Aaron picked me up from the airport and asked if it was ok if we went to the cemetery as Hari wanted me to go see Noah, so we parked the car and walked down to see Noah's grave and spend some time together there. Afterwards we went to Aaron's favourite restaurant McDonalds for a bite to eat as I hadn't had tea yet.
I was going to borrow Aaron's car that he had just inherited after Lisa got another car, but Lisa had a photo shoot the next day, so needed a car, so I spent the day with Aaron, going to collect my nephew Jalen from a church camp and then later we thought we'd go out and do something and ended up at Grindelwald playing minigolf.
There was a tight tussle between Aaron and I for the top prize and at the last hole I had a one shot lead and eventually won by that one shot. I must say though aaron did have distractions with Kobe who is 3 yrs old and also a lost golf ball, when he putted into water :)
Because it was such a hot day, we all decided icecreams were in order, so we ate them and then had a little look around.
Aaron loves his Iphone and instigram, he'll try to sell you on it.
We spent sometime playing on the pirate ship and fooling around and then headed off to get pizza for tea. Lisa got back from her photo shoot late, so Aaron and I spent sometime watching cricket and flicking sport channels as he had talked Lisa into Austar, so he could watch all his sports again.
I spent a few more hours with them the next morning before heading off to my Mum and Dad's for a few days.
Aaron and my sister Lisa have spent the last few years down at the East coast of Tasmania with their family for a week or so at a shack they rent and after losing Noah late last year, they had the shack booked again and thought it would be good if all of us from Lisa's side of the family came down for a few days and spent time together. Lisa and Aaron headed down on the Wednesday and I had decided it was a good time of year to escape Sydney and spend some time with the family, so Mum and I headed down early on the 26th of January which is Australia day. We arrived just after my other Sister Nicki and her Husband Alex and their three kids, Maddi, Alex and Lincoln and not long after us my brother Eden and his wife Steph and their three kids, Chloe, Lachie and Hugh arrived. Aaron has made these peanut butter cups and I had texted him to make sure they were there, so when we got into the shack he goes, I brought these for Chrish and me and we eat a couple and then goes to me I know if my pepsi goes down, who to blame as only you and I drink it, a little subtle warning, but Aaron being a softy always shares it with me.
Aaron was pumped to head to the beach right away, he loves the water, so we put up our tents, grabbed a bite to eat and then all headed over to binnalong bay. The water photos are from last years trip on Australia day, when Mum and I also went down for a few days and stayed with them.
Aaron is lucky to support an Australian sports team, ok, to tell the truth he just loves England in the cricket and was wearing his England cricket team cap, so being Australia day and all, I told him "that's UnAustralian". I needed a hat, so he said to go to chicken feed and grab him an Australian cap too, but unfortunately they were all out. That was the start of our "that's UnAustralian" call all day, I think him and I might have drove everyone batty with everything we said :D !!
I think Aaron was about the first one into the water, he was well and truly in by the time Mum and I arrived, so I threw my shoes off and ran and dived straight in. Harri and Jay were in as well and they had a skimmer ball, that Aaron had texted me about earlier on in the week about as we were both getting more excited about getting to see each other and spend time together. We spent some time fooling around with the ball, before Alex and Eden also came in and we fooled around for awhile, getting smashed by waves and trying to see who could catch a wave the furthest and sneak attacks by Aaron, trying to jump on me when my back was turned and push me under. We spent awhile in before Lisa and Nicki also came in and after a little while I was freezing, so I came in amidst protests of being soft coming down from Sydney, I was so cold that while I was trying to take a photo of everyone in the water I couldn't get it good enough as I was shaking so much :)
We spent awhile longer at the beach throwing around a gridiron ball and playing some cricket as it was "UnAustralian" not to play cricket on Australia day! Aaron was a maniac and after awhile ran back into the water with Jay and had another swim, because it was so cold we all started packing up and I waved at him to come in, he saw me and gave me the "forks" as he's always done, the old two fingers, to say no :D
After getting back to the shack and showering, it was time to make dinner and Lisa and I had a spaghetti blog cook off, masterchef here we come! Aaron had to get a "that's UnAustralian" comment in about eating an Italian dish and she was teasing me about using a fork instead of a spatula, so Aaron decided he was going to try mine instead. After tea we were kinda sitting around while dessert was cooking and Aaron goes to me you look a little anxsy, and that it looked like I wanted to go do something, so I said yeh lets go to the wharf and go fishing and Eden had been talking about taking the boat out and trying it, so I said yeh lets go fishing and said "Aaron are you coming" and then he tries to turn it around on me like I didn't want him to come like. Aaron, Eden, Alex and I took off in the car and put the boat in at a ramp maybe a few hundred metres from the shack and we headed out for an hour or just over.
We had some fun on the boat, we got a few flathead, well Alex and I did, but they were small and we threw them back in, I ended up getting six and Alex 2 and Aaron wasn't getting a nibble, so Eden was teasing him about T-bagging, where your jiggling your line all the time and bringing it up all the time. Aaron decided I had the lucky spot, so he decided he was tsking it and took my seat and then I caught another one and he was right next to me and wasn't getting a nibble, so to tease him I said "how about we swap rods" but he replies, "no you'll catch something on it". After awhile we headed in as all we were catching were small fish and thought we'd get up early and head further out in the sea for bigger fish. When we got to the ramp I jumped out of the boat and held it while everyone else got off, as Eden reversed the trailer down and we hooked the boat up, Aaron and Alex decided they'd race us back to the shack, so Aaron dropped my shoes and they went running off to see if they could beat each other. Eden made a comment about them running and we drove back and dessert was waiting for us, we got asked if we got anything and they asked how many I got and I said a couple and I think Jay asked how many Aaron got, and he replies, "your funny" or something similar.
There was a card game going on next to the tv and we were standing around and Aaron had stolen all the chocolate pudding and had sat on one of the single couches and started eating and he made a sound and we all looked at him thinking he was clowning around like usual and was going on about someones cards, so we all looked at him and Lisa goes sometthing like" No there's something wrong with him" Aaron was on the couch and it looked like he was having a fit, Lisa said to put him on the ground, so we pulled him down and thought he'd soon be fine, but he didn't seem to be breathing, so we started to move him around to try and get his airways clear incase he was blocked. We called an ambulance and Eden had walked in, so he was talking to them on the phone while Alex and my Mum were doing CPR on Aaron. Aaron and Lisa's sons, Jalen who is 12 and Harri who is 7 were in the room and were shocked and were yelling is Daddy going to die, and kept yelling and moving around, so we had to grab them both and after a little bit their Auntie Steph took Hari into one of the bedrooms and I went outside to wait for the ambulance and Jay was wandering around and asking me is Dad going to be ok, and I was sure he'd be fine, so told him yes, that Alex and Mum was looking after him and the ambulance was coming. Jay wanted to go down the street, so I had to hold him and in a little while, Nicki came out and took him into Steph and Harri in the bedroom, where they were all praying hard for Aaron, that he would be ok. After about 15 mins or so, two ambulances came and I flagged them down and they went in and took over from Mum and Alex and the three paramedics went to work on Aaron and I thought he has to come right now. There was no way in my mind that it wasn't going to be ok, Aaron was going to be fine, they would take him to hospital and we'd follow close behind them. I rang Jared who had been planning to come down with Bec and their three kids the next day and told them what was happening and Jared was going "what, are you kidding" and had to tell him that I wasn't and told them I'd let them know what was happening and then had to call Dad, who was at home and let him know as well. Dad also thought I was joking around. Just as I was coming in a police car arrived and asked me what was going on as the two ambulances had on flashing lights, so I told him and he goes I'll come in and as he's walking in the door, he tells me that he doesn't have to come in, but if I wanted to see if he could help, so I said if you can help come in.
The paras tried for about 30-40 mins, using adrenaline, and shocking him, trying tubes down his throat, but nothing was working and they had to tell us "sorry" but they couldn't do anything more for him and that he was gone. Shock, surely that wasn't all, there had to be more, Aaron couldn't possibly be gone, we had just been back 5 mins from fishing, it couldn't be happening!!! It was just after 9pm.
Lisa had now lost a son and husband within three months of each other, not possible I said in my mind, Noah I could understand as he was only given a short life span, but Aaron was only 39, we had been having fun together all day. Kobe was asleep in bed while it was all happening along with most of the other kids or others who were outside so Lisa had to tell Jay and Harri that their Dad had passed away. I went and called back Jared and Bec and Dad and passed on the news that they and all of us didn't want to hear, that Aaron was gone and we couldn't do anything more for him. I also called a couple of my close friends Dave and Ande and blubbed to them what had happened, I was a wreck, I had tears pouring out talking to them and I'm sure I was incomprehensible most of the time. We then had another police car come as well.
He was gone, Aaron was one of my closest friends, it couldnt be, the policeman arranged for Aaron's body to be picked and we all sat there wondering why and not being able to contemplate it. We sat there for a couple of hours with tears all streaming down our faces talking to each other and holding his hands and stroking his hair, not believing it was true, but it was a dream that we would surely wake up from. We had a family prayer together and Eden and Alex gave Lisa and the boys a blessng.
I had to kiss him goodbye when the guy came to collect him, I know it was just his body, but it was still Aaron and we had to help to put his body onto a stretcher to be taken away to the coroner in Launceston. We all stayed up with each other till close on 2am or so, then went to our tents and did a little cleaning to get ready to pack up in the morning. Lisa gave me Aaron's Iphone and told me to accept any friend requests that came through as word had spread about Aaron and a lot of his students wanted to become friends on facebook and there was confusion as people were wondering how he had been accepting friend requests if he was dead, so Lisa had to facebook it that it was true and then I had to as well later on. Aaron was very loved, as soon as you accepted a batch of people as friends and looked at notifications or messages that were getting sent to his accound, there would be more things to accept and look at and it went on until close on 3.30-4.00am when I went to bed to try and get some sleep.
I think I might have got an hrs sleep before I was awake again and went inside the shack and read all of Aaron's tributes on his fb page and also on lisa page and her photography page. Nicki and Mum were inside and were just going out for a a little bit, so I sat on the couch and read and Lisa came out and saw I was crying and held me as I blubbered away to her and made her wet with my tears about how much I loved him and it wasn't right, that he can't be gone.
We all packed each other up once the kids were up and fed and we cleaned the shack, then had a family prayer. I drove Lisa and the boys home, it felt weird not having Aaron there with us, I was used to Nan's van and sitting in the back with the boys, but there was no Aaron. I think I drove pretty well for tears coming every now and again as I listened to Lisa on the phone as people rang her.
Dad was waiting for us with Uncle Kim when we arrived, and Simone was only a couple of minutes behind us followed by Jared and Becky, Nicki had driven Mum back and we had followed Alex and the kids back.
It still seems so unreal, one of my closest buddies is gone, I keep wanting to wake up and it will be all ok. I was thinking maybe if I hadn't wanted to go out fishing, he'd still be with us and Lisa would still have a husband and the boys a Dad to grow up with. Lisa and Aaron were meant to grow old together, that was the plan, and today as it was sunny, we were supposed to be catching fish then fooling around in the water and diving off the rocks like last year when we were together.
The tears keep coming as I think about you, thankyou for all you did for me, I still remember being away for two years in 96-98 and you put together a book for me off the Crows finals and premiership win, I would have done anything for you and I know you would have done the same.
I guess you were needed somewhere else, Noah is a lucky guy getting you back so soon
It feels "unAustralian" Aaron
I love you always
