IN a room full of warmth, love and loss, Sione Lauaki’s powerful presence was celebrated and mourned in equal measures yesterday.
Church United in Te Atatu, West Auckland, hosted Lauaki’s public funeral; a service that featured touching songs from the Tongan church choir, and elsewhere hit all the right notes.
Tributes flowed from the stage where Lauaki was proudly pictured in his All Blacks jersey, and a Tongan flag behind him, to the hundreds who gathered in the packed two-storey church.
Many of Lauaki’s friends, family and former teammates, such as Jerome Kaino, Liam Messam and Manu Vatuvei, wore “Dox Brothers” apparel; a label founded by the man known as “Wax”.
Lauaki wanted to create a way of keeping his family and friends close. Stemming from the Tongan word “tokoua”, the “Dox Brothers” idea was born, and now lives on.
Lauaki, who died last week aged 35 from renal failure, was described as having a big heart and bold shoulders.
Michael Jones and Sir Graham Henry were among other high profile figures but his wife, Stephanie, spoke beautifully and bravely of her “selfless” husband.
“The way that he loved is something I see in our children,” she said. “They love openly, hard, strong. I’m really blessed that I can look at my sons and see the love of their father every day.
“I never understood until this week why my sons do everything that their father does. They’re little gangsters. He didn’t have to do anything and they would do what he did. Now I understand it was because he wasn’t going to be around to teach them to be like him. They have it in their heart already and I’m so thankful.
“I’ll never let our sons forget how amazing you are.”
