What should a man wear?

Choosing an outfit for your husband to wear in his coffin is much more complex than I had imagined.

Casual clothes? Suit and tie? A combination? What else should go in the coffin with him?

What I immediately thought was, that etiquette would suggest suit and tie. And so that was the ‘right’ thing to do. Dress him in a suit and tie. I’d just do that.

But quite rightly a friend queried me on that - is that right for Pete, though?

And I had to ponder that. He was a ‘jeans shirt and hat’ person - in work and play. It’s how everyone knew him in a workplace or out at the pub. In one workplace he was just known as ‘big hat’ due to his constant wearing of an Akubra hat through the whole year - winter or summer.

But he loved an occasion. He would dress up for an occasion. Still always in RMs - he didn’t own a pair of ‘dress shoes’ just ‘good boots’ and he would suit-up appropriately for weddings, races, parties...

And he loved colour.

Even if it was a jeans and boots event (and despite his love of a blue check or striped shirt) he has a wardrobe full of colourful top half options - a bright red shirt, emerald green striped shit, orange check shirt, 7 yellow polo shirts (he actually does own this many yellow polo shirts - of varying colours on the colour spectrum from canary yellow to mustard) or a rugby jumper of an obscure colour combination or stripe.

Coloured shirts - his love for them has been long held

My greatest challenge really was what shoes to put him in. His good boots - RM Williams Stock Agent top boots - and the ones he was wearing on the day he died were his favourite. But could I part with them? Should I keep them for our son? Or the kids as a reminder of their Dad? If I cremated them, they were gone forever.

That quandary ended up being surprisingly easy to solve.

When putting those RMs away, I saw the pointed-toe, pattern-stitched, Cuban-heeled Ariat top boots he had bought a few years ago.

He loved them.

I disliked them immensely.

But considering how much he put up with my shoe loving tendencies, I tolerated them.

Problem solved: he could wear those boots. Take them with him. I was happy to cremate those!

Then I wouldn’t have to see them in the wardrobe and continue to roll my eyes at them. And our son could inherit his father's boots if he so desired in years to come.

But the clothing dilemma remained.

If the kids saw him in the coffin at the viewing in his casual clothes, wouldn’t that look too much like when he fell asleep on the couch on the weekend? Wouldn’t the fact it just looked like he would wake up any second and demand to know why the tv channel had been changed because ‘I wasn’t asleep, I was watching something’ be too traumatic for the kids?

I had no idea, but it was a genuine fear I held.

So I decided that his farewell was an occasion. And he always dressed for an occasion.

When the kids saw him in the coffin he just looked asleep. In his suit. Completely at peace. I knew this from when I had spent time with him when he died, and when I did a previewing of him before we took the kids in.

As it turns out - this outfit was the best one - colour and occasion-appropriate

And they recognised that Daddy was dressed for his funeral.

Just like he should be, they thought.

Phew

And so into the coffin went letters they had written to him, a cap, a stubby holder with a rum & cola can in it.

Along with his dog whistle.

The metal whistle that he worn around his neck on a dirty piece of string from the day I had met him. So attached to it, that he wore it under his suit on our wedding day.

He had trained so many dogs with it - dogs that were renowned for their obedience and loyalty to him, that would change direction and stop and bark depending on the noise that whistle made.

He had also trained the children to come to its call as well. Much to my complete abhorrence the first time he did it. Turned out to be completely useful in cities, crowded shops, outdoor events when we need to corral the kids back to our location, or if they had wandered afar and we could see them desperately searching the crowd for us - a quick whistle and they could relocate us.

The string had recently broken, and we haven’t had a working dog to use it on for years, but it was still an iconic part of him, so it needed to go in.

And so we said goodbye to him with all of the things he loved - and dressed for the occasion.