Woman goes to brother’s funeral and finds her son’s grave

A woman in the northern French town of Hellemmes was shocked to come across her son’s grave whilst attending her brother’s funeral at the local cemetery. She had been unaware of his death, which occurred last month.

Josiane Vermeersch went to to her recently deceased brother’s funeral with her husband and most of her family. After the ceremony had finished she went up the path towards the cemetery gates in order to go home. The path goes past the section of the cemetery reserved for those who die without their families being found or without enough money to pay for their burial. Suddenly, her 19-year-old-niece Mégane noticed a grave there with a tombstone upon which was engraved “Olivier Langlet, 1968-2010.” Well, Olivier Langlet is her son’s name. Josiane Vermeersch was taken aback at seeing the grave but thought that it was that of someone else with the same name as her son. After all, hadn’t she left a message on his phone just two days ago inviting him to her brother’s funeral? But he wasn’t at the funeral. So she phoned the funeral company, and learned that the dead person’s middle name, date of birth and address were those of her son and she collapsed on the spot. As her son had lived less than a mile from the cemetery for the last 24 years she couldn’t understand why the local police had not found her coordinates and contacted her to inform her of his death, says Le Figaro. She later declared that “I have been here all summer. Both my husband’s and my name are on the death certificate and my son’s telephone would have given them my phone number as well as my messages.” The police said that they had tried to find her but added that she had left the address they found for her some time before, and the town hall in Hellemmes couldn’t trace her either because she lives just outside of the town limits. A representative from the town hall was furious at the police. “This is unreal” he said. “Here we are in 2010 and we never stop crowing about how we have the best police scientific experts in the world, but we can’t even find these people. It’s more than depressing." Olivier Langlet died in bed at home on July 5 of natural causes and was buried in the cemetery on the 18th. He was 42 years old. His parents are now going to offer him a dignified funeral. Josiane Vermeersch and her husband have decided that his body will be exhumed in the next few days and incinerated. His ashes will then be spread around the Remembrance Garden at Hellemmes. And not around the cemetery grounds.