 When nine-year-old Niamh died, her mother, Gilli Davidson, knew how she wanted to say goodbye - and her local funeral director made it possible. Niamh Storey Davidson was diagnosed with a Wilms tumour - a rare kidney cancer affecting children - when she was six. For nearly three years she endured treatment, but kept relapsing. The family were told she was terminally ill. "The thought that she wouldn't be here was unbearable," remembers Gilli. "She died at home at 1:30 in the afternoon, with me and her dad." Gilli's other children - including Niamh's twin, Zach - were at school or college. But through the blur of upset and sorrow, Gilli knew one thing clearly: she wanted to donate Niamh's eyes, the only part of the little girl unaffected by disease. Organ donation is very important to Gilli's family - as a baby, one of Niamh's brothers had a heart transplant after contracting a serious chest infection. She needed to act fast. By 5pm she was in touch with Arka Original Funerals - a Brighton company that is part of a movement in the UK to re-personalise and de-industrialise death, dying and funerals. so sad yet so true 
 When funeral director Cara Mair arrived with her colleague, Sarah Clarke-Kent, to pick Niamh up, there was no heavy-duty, black plastic body bag to zip her into.
She was carried away on a stretcher with a pillow, cotton shroud, and a soft felt covering appliquéd with large leaves. "Removing someone from their home is such a hard thing for families to witness," says Cara. "It's important to have something of beauty to wrap them in. A person may have died, but it's still their shell, their vessel." |