Man explains why he slept next to his dead wife for six days

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May 11, 2017 2:45 PM

In case you’re wondering, Russell says he did put incontinence pants on his wife and that there were no foul smells or fluids.

man slept next to dead wife for days

Last month a British man named Russell Davison made a moving Facebook tribute to his deceased wife, Wendy.

The emotional content isn’t what made the Facebook post go viral, though.

It was the revelation that he slept next to his dead wife for six days.

Wendy died in their Derby, England home after a 10-year battle with cancer.

Grieving, Russell didn’t want to hand over her body to the morgue.

He said he washed and dressed his wife’s body before placing it into a cocoon in their bedroom (his family doesn’t like the word “coffin”).

“We have been fooled by TV and films etc into thinking that there is something to [be] scared about dead bodies,” he wrote. “There is not, I

"can assure you.” Russell went on to describe the experience as “beautiful and comforting.”

After several days of grieving and welcoming friends and family for a home vigil, Russell and his children loaded her body into the back of their Land Rover and drove her to a crematorium.

Russell has now given his first interview post-virality to the Independent, in which he says he would recommend his unorthodox ritual to “absolutely everybody.” He added:

“There was nothing that upset me about being in a room with a dead body. It was the opposite: Wendy’s body was still there and that was really comforting.”

“As I told one friend, ‘We are so into nature and everything it brings, there is nothing that could happen to Wendy’s body that could frighten us.’”

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