Bruce Lawson thought he was bidding farewell to his 81-year-old mother last week at her funeral in Houston, Texas, KHOU11 reports. That’s why he was surprised when he received a call several days later saying her body was still at the funeral home, the report says.
Mabrie Memorial Mortuary was calling to apologize, the news station reports, explaining that workers mistook the body of Edna Lawson for another person.
"The other body was buried in Mrs. Lawson’s grave site on July 26, 2014, while Mrs. Lawson remained in our facilities, where she currently rests," the funeral home wrote in a statement.
Workers have exhumed the body, the report says, and Mrs. Lawson will be buried in her grave site next to family members within the coming days.
While Bruce Lawson is relieved that the error has been corrected, he is grief-stricken about having to say goodbye to his beloved mother once again, he told the news station. He was also a little upset that he didn't go with a gut feeling, saying he had doubts earlier that the deceased woman was actually his mother when he arrived to identify the body before the funeral.
“I said to her, I said, it doesn't look like my mom,” Bruce told KHOU11. “Do you think maybe you have the wrong body? Maybe it's someone else back there? And she said we don't make those kind of mistakes.”
So the service moved forward, with the family thinking her appearance had changed through embalming, the news station writes. And the woman was buried next to his dad, a World War II veteran, in a plot at Houston National Cemetery.
But upon receiving the call about the error and returning to the funeral home to identify his mother a second time, he immediately recognized her.
“I said now that's my mother,” he said in the interview.
The family is in the midst of planning a second funeral.
Read more at KHOU11.