28th April 2015
Our final goodbyes. I don’t know how we got to that day, the month after Jason’s birthday seemed like a whirlwind and not for the reasons we wanted it to be.
Looking back I realise that we didn’t know how to plan Jason’s funeral and there was no-one to really offer any support either. Our bereavement worker didn’t have much to do with us after our second meeting so she hasn’t really given us any clue how to go about it. I didn’t want to think about planning my sons funeral at all and so my mum got in touch with a local funeral directors who they had used to plan my Nan’s funeral. Jason’s body wasn’t going to be released until after his post mortem so it give us a bit of time to meet with them before he needed to be moved.
I remember that meeting so vividly. My parents drove us and stayed with us while we made those heartbreaking decisions. Looking back I wish we’d have known more, said more, done more to show him how loved he was/is but in reality we just wanted it over with. We chose a basic coffin, I can’t even remember what kind! I feel like I have failed him so much in this journey because my mind has blocked out the pain. I think it was a wicker coffin but it may have been white. We drove ourselves there, not wanting to ride in a funeral car. Jason wasn’t taken from home but from the chapel of rest. I didn’t know having him at home was an option, one I think i would have wanted but I know I wouldn’t have been able to let him go again. We knew what music we wanted, one song, repeated just a couple of times. I knew I wanted “Here Without You” by Three Doors Down, it may be a song about lost lovers but the lyrics meant so much to me, hubby didn’t want to think so let me choose.
We decided Jason’s funeral was to be just close family, us, grandparents and great grandparents and Jason’s uncle. I knew if anyone else was to come that I wouldn’t be able to grieve for my son who was lieing in the coffin. I would have felt like I needed to be strong and I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to take smile at friends who just didnt understand but would have been there because they loved him too.We needed to let our emotions out and say goodbye the only way we knew how.
After talking to others I decided not to go to the chapel of rest, I wanted the memory of Jason to be me holding him, not him in there but my mother-in-law went as did lukes nans. They assured me he looked peaceful and beautiful but that is something I’ll never know for myself. I wish I had gone, dressed him, given him one final kiss goodbye but I didnt. I always think of him lying there, would he have known how much his mummy loved him? Would he have felt abandoned because I didn’t go and see him?
I don’t know how but Luke carried Jason’s coffin in, along with my dad, Luke’s dad and my brother in law. I walked behind them just staring at the tiny box holding him, knowing his body was in there but also wishing it wasn’t and it wasn’t my sons funeral I was walking in to. It wasn’t his body being burnt to ashes. It wasn’t my family being left broken, it wasn’t me wishing it was me in there instead of him. We left daffodils on his coffin when we walked through the door. There was no eulogy, nobody spoke we just stood in silence listening to the music I spent hours deciding on. Waiting. Waiting for the curtains to close and for my boy to be gone forever.
We spent longer than we wanted waiting for them to change the music but I stood there holding my husband’s hand while he was secretly holding the near Jason had with him in the hospital. The bear I wanted to bring but didn’t as Luke hadn’t been able to look at it. The bear that lay next to him in the only pictures we have. The bear that wasn’t much smaller than him and for perfectly in to Luke’s suit pocket. This tiny bear has so much meaning to us and I’m so glad it got to say it’s goodbyes too.
Jason’s funeral was held in 28th April 2015 at 11am. It needed to be early. I couldn’t sit around pretending to be okay for the entire day.
Jason’s funeral was the day before his due date. Jason was due on the 29th April 2015. This should have been the happiest day of our lives, a due date brings so much hope and happiness to a mum but Jason’s due date was the first day I had to live knowing not just he had died but that his body was gone too.
Mothering A Rainbow 