Death is perhaps the saddest thing that humans have to witness. But what if that death was of your child. This is what happened to Jo Corbett-Weeks. She couldn't coddle and dote over her son, Max Corbett-Gardener, and watch him grow like she would have imagined. When her little one was just four years old, the mother had to watch him pass away and do the most painful thing — attend her son's funeral.
It took years for her to cope with the pain of losing a child. And a few years ago, she told BBC that it had taken her three years to prepare herself to get a headstone where Max rests.
"It would have been his seventh birthday on Sunday, and this was like a birthday present to him from me," she said. "I chose a star-shaped stone because I wanted something suitable for Max - something personal. This stone is just so perfect for my poor little chap."
The headstone was specially made and was a way of celebrating Max's life, no matter how short it was. She believed that it was just the right thing to do for her son, who suffered severe epilepsy and its extreme effects.
For her son's special memorial, Jo saved up £3,000 for the headstone which had a teddy bear holding a star, and a warm message was dedicated to her son, according to the Daily Mail.
Although the mother found comfort in celebrating her son's life and marking his 7th birthday in a special way, the comfort was taken away from her in a matter of days. The headstone was taken away just three days after it was laid against Max's grave in the Great Malvern Cemetery, Worcestershire. And it only took one complaint from another family to do so without even asking for permission from Jo. "I was totally unaware this was going on. The council did not contact me and it was the stonemason who told me he'd been ordered to remove it," she said.
The pain of losing a child is unimaginable and each family has their own way of overcoming the grief. For Jo and her family, it was the headstone. But that was taken away from them because someone felt that it was not "in keeping" with the rest of the cemetery.
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"I feel upset, distressed and angry. We have been through so much as a family. I could understand if the grave was uncared for or unsightly, but it isn't," Jo said. "The headstone meant a lot to me and the family but now we are fighting to have it put back. It's a horrible situation. We just want to have somewhere to grieve."
Max was laid to rest in the cemetery's adult section because Jo wanted him to be close to other family members. The Malvern Town Council who runs the cemetery remarked that they would have allowed the headstone if it was in the children's section.
"We have conformity of shapes in our lawn cemetery," said a spokesman for the council. "We were contacted by people who objected to the shape. The longer it stayed up, the harder the process would have been. It was a very difficult decision to remove it but one we had to make straight away."
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The council believed that removing the headstone was the only option they had to respect the regulations of the cemetery. "It wasn't necessarily an objection to the shape but why we appeared to be applying one rule to one family and other rules to another," the spokesman went on to say. "The stonemason in this situation did not have permission to put the stone up - and the stone is not in keeping with the graves in that area. By not following the correct process he has caused considerable distress to both families." A petition was made on change.org to reinstate Max's memorial and it had 60,185 supporters.
But tragedy once again came into Jo's life when she lost her oldest daughter, Zoe, not long after she lost Max. Zoe was just 17 an accident took her life away in 2016, according to BirminghamLive. Today, Jo continues on for her son, TJ who was second of her three children. In 2018, Jo shared a picture of the two graves of her children, saying "Two new white crosses for my two beautiful children.. Miss them so much xxxxxxxxxxxx"
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Jo may not have been able to have the star-shaped memorial she first imagined. But she and her son TJ have been able to put memorial stones for both her children, Zoe and Max. She wrote on social media, "So today we have finally put Zoë memorial stone with her brothers... Something I have wanted and needed to do for some time.. But we have finally done it.. Has been an emotional time but proud of myself and TJ... They are always in my thoughts and always will be forever..... Love them dearly with all my heart ♥ xxxxx"
