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Halatau Naitoko's coffin was showered with daisies and sand after it was lowered into the plot his grandmother had purchased for herself.
Matriarch Matalupe Fuimaono, clearly exhausted, sat cross-legged and watched through red, puffy eyes as the sobbing family gathered around Mr Naitoko's grave to the song Wind Beneath My Wings.
No grandmother should bury her grandson, she had earlier told the Weekend Herald.
At 17, Halatau Naitoko was a doting father, boyfriend, big brother, loyal son and grandson.
He was "just doing his job" as a courier driver for the family business when he was accidentally shot dead by a police officer on the Northwestern Motorway a week ago.
Mr Naitoko's girlfriend, Stephanie Cook, kissed her wilting daisy and sobbed over the Tongan mat covering her first love's coffin. She had earlier told the Weekend Herald that as police representatives filed into the funeral at the Naitoko family home, she had wondered, "Which one of you shot him?"
Their 2-year-old daughter, Hemo Naitoko, clung to her grandfather, who taught her how to blow kisses into the grave.
Hemo understood something was not right. For the previous five nights she had slept on a mattress pressed next to her father's coffin. She would speak to him, and touch his face, Miss Cook said.
Mr Naitoko's distraught mother, Ivoni Fuimaono, heavily pregnant with her tenth child - a son she will name Halatau - reached out towards the casket and wailed.
For days, she had barely left the side of her son's coffin. His body had been at home since Sunday.
Mrs Fuimaono dressed her eldest boy in white and next to him placed a photo of him dressed in a suit, as best man for his cousin's wedding last November. Each night his brothers, sisters and cousins had camped beside his coffin.
"We act like he is here with us, singing and cracking jokes," said cousin Alistair Hau, 20.
From 9am yesterday, hundreds of mourners shuffled towards the casket as church members sang Tongan hymns. Mourners kissed Mr Naitoko and prayed. They held each other tightly and wiped away each other's tears.
Most wore ta'ovala (Tongan flax mats) wrapped around their waists and T-shirts emblazoned with Mr Naitoko's photo and the words "Rest in paradise".
They wore badges a family member had made, and some of the young girls, including Hemo, wore white headbands with the words "I love U Tau" printed on them.
Traffic wardens closed off Ferguson St, Mangere, from 8am as the community flowed towards the home. Mr Naitoko's birth father, Vili Naitoko, had arrived from Australia at 11pm on Thursday.
His cousin Oliva Sime, representing his American relatives, had arrived from Tonga a few days earlier.
"It is a tragedy - an interruption to a life that was starting to unfold," Mr Naitoko's aunt Paea Sime told the congregation.
Even the eyes of the police officers brimmed with tears. Police Minister Judith Collins, Police Commissioner Howard Broad, Manukau Mayor Len Brown and other local politicians were also present.
Pastor Vosailangi Sikalu spoke of innocent blood shed and said on Mr Naitoko's behalf: "My blood has been shed and that blood is crying out for forgiveness.
"Let that message reach out to the Minister of Police, the Police Commissioner and all the government officials - even the beloved policeman who fired that shot."
