And so it continued.

Phone calls, emails, text messages, sending, receiving, crying. From about day 5 after James killed himself it was pretty constant. Friends of James reaching out to offer their condolences’, institution’s wanting more information and detail before they would talk to me. The funeral arrangements had to be made. What did he want? cremation or burial?? No one knew. The police needed contacting to see where his car had been taken after recovering it from where James had left it on that night. etc etc….

I worked through it all systematically but one of the main questions that needed answering was what James’s intentions were after he had died? His Son’s wanted somewhere to visit after the funeral so we decided, as a family, on a burial. In doing so it actually made it easier to arrange a date for his funeral as not many people are getting buried these days opting instead for a cremation. I would suspect that the doubling in cost for a burial may be a significant factor in this!

The other more pressing question was when could I see my brother again? I was desperate to get him back home to us at the local chapel of rest. He had been taken to the central mortuary in our area where all unexplained deaths are required to be dealt with. Getting in touch with them was very difficult and as it turned out I couldn’t get any information from them as I had to do it through the Coroners Office. Once I’d spoken to them later in the day, they explained that it would probably be a week before we could bring him home.