TORONTO - The heartbroken wife of Canada's highest-ranking officer to be killed in Afghanistan says she has lost much more than her husband and the father of her two kids.

She also has lost her "best friend."

As Col. Geoff Parker's flag-draped casket was loaded Thursday into a Hercules at Kandahar Airfield to begin the long journey home -- two days after the Oakville native and 17 others were killed in a suicide bombing -- the soldier's grieving wife released a heartfelt statement about her late husband.

"I have known Parker essentially all my life and I, as well as all those who took the time to truly know him, realized he was a kind, caring, sarcastic and supportive friend," Mary Jane Parker said. "Never one to back down from a challenge, or what he saw as right, Parker loved the Royals, the Army and Canada."

The 42-year-old Royal Canadian Regiment member died Tuesday in an attack on a NATO convoy in the Afghan capital. The attack also killed five U.S. soldiers and 12 Afghan civilians.

Brig.-Gen. Andre Corbould, two other Canadian officers and a corporal were also in the five-vehicle convoy when a minivan loaded with nearly a tonne of explosives blew up. But they were not injured in the blast.

Col. Parker's wife, now left to raise the couple's kids, Charlie and Alex, pointed out that in recent years the colonel had the misfortune of notifying other families at CFB Petawawa and Gagetown of their losses.

But he always did so with great care, she said.

"The children and I will miss him dearly but know he is watching over us with the encouragement to 'put a smile on and move forward,' " she said of her husband, an avid fisherman who loved to travel.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack and confirmed the foreign convoy was the target.

A repatriation ceremony will be held for the fallen soldier at CFB Trenton at 2 p.m. Friday before he is driven along the Highway of Heroes to the coroner's office in Toronto.

- Files from The Canadian Press