A loving and grieving husband refused to hand over his dead wife's body to a funeral director at the mortuary after she succumbed to cervical cancer. Instead, he opted to wash his wife's body himself, dress her and placed her body in a coffin and placed it in their bedroom. He slept next to his wife's body in their bedroom for six days.
Letting agent Russel Davidson could not bear to see his wife Wendy placed in a bodybag and taken off to a mortuary after she died in his arms at their home after a decade-long fight with cervical cancer. Davidson said he was determined to keep her at home with their four children. He said that his approach should be "the way we treat our dead" as it allowed him and his boys a better opportunity to come to terms with their painful loss.
Davidson said staying close to a beloved's dead body is not scary at all. He insists people have just been fooled by TV and films into thinking that there is something to be afraid of dead bodies where there is not. He shared that his wife died very peacefully, fully sedated, in no pain and was in his and son Dylan's arms with their faithful dog Elvis snuggled up right next to Wendy. He said his wife simply looked radiantly beautiful even without make-up.
Wendy, 50, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2006, just after the couple celebrated their 40th birthday. She refused chemotherapy and radiotherapy and instead opted for "natural health". Three years ago, she was told that she had only six months to live. The couple bought a caravan to travel to Europe but had to return to Britain in September last year as Wendy's pain became so unbearable.
She wanted to die at home and was lovingly nursed by her husband Russell, her sons Luke and Dylan Nichols and Russell's sons Benjamin and Dominic Davidson until her death on April 21. The husband said that he was very determined to have his wife at home when she died. He wanted them to take care of her and have her stay in their couple's bedroom so he could sleep in the same room with her beside him. He said that keeping his wife at home was like "an emotional decompression chamber", which helped the family accept her death while her body was still there. He said that's the best way for them instead of seeing her body being taken away in plastic bodybag which is "alien" to them and something they could not take.
Source :
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