MAN BURIED IN LEGO COFFIN
The family of a young man who died of cancer celebrated his life by creating a unique Lego-style brick coffin for his funeral. Jordan McCole (inset) died aged 21 following a battle with Leukaemia.
THE family of a young man who died of cancer celebrated his life by creating a unique Lego-style brick coffin for his funeral.
Jordan McCole died aged 21 following a battle with Leukaemia. His parents wanted Lego fan Jordan to have a send-off like no other and came up with the idea of creating the 7ft brick for the coffin. The family, from Tydesley, Wigan, kept their plans a surprise for mourners.
It set a joyous tone for the rest of the service at Howe Bridge Crematorium in Atherton, with OPM’s ‘Heaven is Half Pipe’ playing and a slap-up buffet at an Italian restaurant. Jordan’s mum, Jannine, said she wanted the service to reflect her son’s motto of ‘go big or go home.’
She said: “We never imagined that Jordi’s illness would take him because he was a fighter. But once we had to face the fact that we would lose him, we started thinking about how we could make his send off unique and true to who he was as a person.
“We talked to our friend who makes bespoke kitchens and came up with the idea of saying goodbye to Jordi in a 7ft yellow Lego brick – Lego being one of his obsessions. “We didn’t want to send him on his next journey in a brown box, we wanted the last image of him to reflect his life and if you knew Jordan, you’d understand why we did it. He was our ray of sunshine and would have wanted his send-off to make his friends and family smile. “We made the decision that we wanted to inspire others going through the same terrible situation of losing a young person
He was a ray of sunshine and would have wanted his sendoff to make us smile Jordan McCole’s mum Jannine
and facing a traditional send-off. It may have to be goodbye, but it can be your goodbye – their goodbye. Funerals can have laughter and creativity as well as love and grief.”
Jordan, who died on February 3, was an aspiring Royal Navy aircraft engineer and was passionate about the outdoors.
He worked an ambassador for charity Climbing Out, which runs activity programmes for young people with life-changing illnesses, and sailed with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Jordan’s parents, Jannine and Tony, are now raising money in his memory for the Young Oncology Unit at The Christie.
To make a donation visit the JustGiving page justgiving.com/ fundraising/JordanMcCole.