Last Tuesday evening, Cau visited his father for the last time to see him one more time. Around half past five he closed the coffin himself that day. The funeral mass would be last Monday morning.
Someone else’s grave
However, twenty minutes before the funeral, he is already on his way to the church, Cau receives a phone call. The funeral home. If he wants to come as soon as possible. There he is told that a mistake has been made and his father was already buried last Saturday. In the cemetery in Voerendaal, but in someone else’s grave.
The person in the coffin from whom they are about to say goodbye is therefore not their loved one. While the son learns what is going on, the church slowly fills up. “The funeral association offered us to say goodbye with an empty coffin in the church, so that the mass could still take place. But of course I didn’t want that.”
‘Emotional wreck’
Those present in the church were called to go to the room for the coffee table in brasserie de Borenburg. There the situation was explained by the staff of the funeral home. “They did that as best they could,” says Cau.
He doesn’t know what to do with it. “I haven’t slept, I’m exhausted. I went to work today out of misery,” he says Tuesday morning. “My wife is an emotional wreck, and my father’s peers at church are all upset. They can’t handle this.”
‘Very painful’
Funeral association Voerendaal admits that a “big mistake” was made. “We are doing everything possible to handle this as well and respectfully as possible,” says secretary Ine Keulers. She does not want to say anything about how things could have gone so wrong “in the interest of the families involved”. However, it appears that an employee did not act by the book. Keulers says casually that there are “consequences for those who do not follow our procedures.” She also says that this is the first time this has happened. “Very painful, for all parties.”
Mayor Wil Houben van Voerendaal says he finds the situation “very sad”. “A human error with very serious consequences.” Of course he gave permission to empty the grave and rebury the body. That permission is required by law. Another farewell will probably be organized next Monday, Cau says.
Sexton John Gulpen of the Sint Laurentiuskerk, the funeral would take place there, initially does not know what happened Monday morning, but later says that he “does not want to participate in sensational articles.” Chaplain Beijk, he would provide the service, De Limburger refers to the families and the funeral home.