The memory of her son swimming at Patea Beach with his daughters playfully hanging off his shoulders around him is bittersweet for Robina Wichman.
Later that day, Kristofer Wichman would drown while saving his daughters and niece from the same fate.
The 36-year-old was buried this week at Patea's Pariroa Pa following last weekend's tragedy.
Robina and her husband Tu spoke of the last day with their son, agreeing it was their favourite memory of him.
"My favourite part was when he did a bomb splash in the water ... he went running up to the river and did a bomb, his girls dived on top of him," she said.
"My favourite memory is that, seeing those two girls in the water with their arms wrapped around their father. All I heard him say to the girls: 'I love you'. That's my strongest memory. That's my saddest, but my most happiest."
Tu Wichman started off the day with his grandson Chanze Wichman and Kris, a builder, as the three of them worked on the house, and the family went down to the beach for a picnic.
"It was a very positive day," he said.
"It was a day a father and son could acknowledge."
Kris was grabbing a ball out of the water when his two daughters, Izzy, 11, and Ava, 10, and his 7-year-old niece Kiri-Tepaninga Himiona, followed him in.
The children were caught in a strong current.
Chanze, 16, swam out to help his uncle bring two of the girls to safety, Tu said. On his third trip out, he nearly made it to Kris and Kiri-Tepaninga only to see the two swept away before his eyes.
They were swept 1-2km south of Mana Bay towards the Whenuakura River. Kiri-Tepaninga was able to make it to shore.
Kris, an experienced surfer and fisherman, was found further along the shoreline but could not be revived.
"Krissy must have got her pretty close to shore and then collapsed," Tu said.
Robina said her son was a strong swimmer. "He loved that sea. It was the thing he loved most that took him.
"I know he's a hero, I've heard that. He put their lives before his. He would have done that for anybody."
Unable to see what was happening in the surf, Robina and Tu watched from across the river as the two daughters cried on the shore.
"It was so disheartening that we couldn't do anything," Tu said.
"We didn't know what happened to our son ... all we could do was sit there and watch my mokos crying."
It was thanks to Kris' strength and swimming skills that they buried one person instead of four on Tuesday, he said.
"We've got to be thankful that Krissy was strong enough to do all those things for those three kids."
They praised Chanze for helping save the girls.
"The thing with Chanzy is he stepped up to the mark, became a man," Tu said.
They were also thankful for strangers on the beach who joined in the rescue, as well as emergency services that attended.
Kris' tangi brought loved ones in "droves" coming from as far as Australia, Fiji, Samoa, and the Cook Islands.
"They brought my son on like a king," Tu said.
Robina said it was the send-off Kris deserved.
"He was a good dad," she said.
"The granddaughters have lost a dad and can't understand why at this time, and they want their dad back but that's never going to happen."
Robina said the beach needed to have lifeguards, while Tu felt the rock wall at the bay needed to have ladders along it, so if someone was swept towards the wall they could climb up.
Kris, also father to Grace, has five brothers and one sister. He grew up in Lower Hutt and attended St Bernard's College.
His iwi affiliations were Ngati Ruanui, Ngati Nga Rauru, and Tinomana on the Cook Islands side.