I buried my boy 3 times
The grief flooded back every single time...
It was New Year’s Eve 2011, I couldn’t wait to go out and celebrate with my family.
My darling son Lee, 26, had just returned from a six-month tour of Afghanistan with the Royal Engineers. So the time we had together as a family with my husband Paul, 56, and daughter Lyndsey, 28, was even more precious.
Starting the festivities, we joined our friends plus Lee and his girlfriend in a bar in Merthyr.
We enjoyed a couple of drinks, chatted and danced until, at around 9pm, Lee approached me and Paul.
‘I think we’re going to head off,’ he said.
We understood. Lee had been away for so long, and naturally wanted to make the most of some alone time with his girlfriend.
‘OK. See you tomorrow, my love,’ I said, kissing him.
I’d never have believed those would be my final words to my son.
Just 20 minutes later, we moved on to our friend’s house, turning right into the street as we left the bar. If we’d have turned left, we’d have seen Lee lying on the ground, surrounded by paramedics…
At our friend’s place, Paul’s phone rang.
‘What’s he done now?’ I heard Paul chuckle. Then his face dropped. As he hung up, I asked who’d called him, and he said it was a police officer.
‘Lee’s been in a road accident,’ he told me.
What? Just an hour ago, we’d been in the bar together.
Our friend’s neighbour drove us to the Prince Charles Hospital, where Lee had been blue-lighted.
‘We want to see our son,’ I said to a nurse.
Ushering us into the relatives’ room, she sat us down.
‘We’re working on him,’ she said.
Even then, we thought he was probably getting stitches or maybe a bandage. But then… ‘We’re working on his heart,’ the nurse said.
And the magnitude of what was happening sunk in. Something told us our boy was leaving us.
We waited in that room for what felt like eternity. Until…
‘I’m afraid Lee isn’t going to make it,’ a doctor told us, as we stared at him, open-mouthed.
Lee was a soldier. I’d worried we’d lose him on a battlefield. At least then he’d have died for something he believed in.
When we saw Lee, he looked peaceful, asleep. We stayed with him for a while, trying to comprehend this nightmare.
It was only at the inquest months later that we found out exactly how Lee had died.
He and his girlfriend had bickered, and she’d run across the road to jump in a taxi. Trying to stop the car, Lee had ended up close to the bonnet And, as the taxi
Lee was a soldier. I’d worried we’d lose him on a battlefield
had moved off, Lee had fallen, hitting his head on the concrete.
He’d broken his skull, and had a brain haemorrhage and a cardiac arrest.
No-one was to blame. The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death.
On 9 January 2012, over 500 mourners filled St Tydfil’s Parish Church for Lee’s funeral. He had a full military service and burial.
‘The regiment has lost an outstanding soldier,’ one of his colleagues said.
As a family, we knew this wouldn’t be our last goodbye, as doctors still had some of Lee’s organs from a postmortem.
On 9 March that year, Lee’s remains were returned to us, and we buried the ashes with the rest of him.
It was tough experiencing the funeral again, but it gave us some closure. We could finally grieve for our Lee properly.
We tried to get on with our lives. Keeping busy, we raised £30,000 for Help The Heroes. Months flew by, and we were still overwhelmed by the grief. Then, on 12 June 2013, Paul came down from upstairs as white as a ghost.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked him.
He’d received a call from the undertaker. What he said next made me shudder.
‘Lee’s body parts have been found in the fridge at University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff.’
What? But we’d already buried Lee…twice.
We were told they’d missed some of Lee’s remains when they’d returned them.
So the undertaker collected them, and we had a third funeral. All the grief and upset we’d suffered had been whipped up again. The pain felt raw, like the day we’d lost him, 18 months previously.
We started to question what we’d been given originally and what they were giving us now.
Was this really everything?
To this day, we’ve never received an apology for what happened. Solicitors say too much time has passed now. We miss Lee terribly. His room is still exactly how it was – his dressing gown on the back of his chair... He was the perfect son. Paul says he hasn’t just lost his son, he’s lost his best friend, too.
No-one should have to bury a son once...let alone three times.
The hospital had missed some of our son’s remains