When I visit my son’s grave now, I am filled with a sense of peace

Obsessed with perfect paths, Will Gore recounts a difficult walk in Berkhamsted cemetery

We planted a few snowdrops round Joshua’s grave

There are some places you never want to tread: bogs, crumbling precipices, dog excrement and slugs are things I seek to avoid.

Some grim walks are unavoidable. When dispatched to the headteacher’s office, you have to bite your young lip and click-clack down the reverberating corridor to meet your fate. When you miss the last tube and there isn’t a taxi to be seen, there is sometimes nothing for it but a trudge through the mean streets of the night.

I never expected to have to walk behind my dead son’s coffin; who does? He was born prematurely and died just a day later, after a night of life-saving efforts in the neonatal intensive care unit.

A fortnight on – or was it three weeks – we gathered for a funeral: just me, my wife and our parents; our sad group almost outnumbered by priest, verger and undertakers – though it doesn’t take more than a single pall-bearer to carry an infant’s casket.

After a short service in a side chapel of St Peter’s church, we departed for the cemetery, a short drive away. Sited at the top of a hill, Berkhamsted’s cemetery is surrounded by towering trees and infused by the hum of the A41, which runs along its south side. It seemed bleak that day.

The car carrying Joshua’s coffin drove slowly, at walking pace, towards the prepared grave. Ahead of it went the funeral director, a youngish man in the usual hat and tails of his trade.

Six years on, we pop into the cemetery from time to time, parking outside the gates and walking along the central driveway once again, with no tapping cane for company

He held a cane in his right hand, which he lifted with what seemed an inappropriate flourish, before tapping it on the tarmac, repeat, repeat, repeat. It was silver topped; another otiose embellishment.

When I think back to his tap, tap, tapping with that stick I sometimes wonder if the silvered handle was a skull. I assume it couldn’t have been: I must have exaggerated the embellishments even further.

We reached the grave, freshly dug. It was small of course, like the coffin. I suppose it wasn’t any less deep than an adult’s grave – but I had no point of comparison; it was the first time I had been to a burial. It was a cold March morning, but clear at least.

Once prayers had been said, ashes tossed into the hole, we walked away so the cemetery workers could move in to backfill and eventually re-turf. A bleak task done, I left the graveside feeling a mixture of relief and guilt that this poor child should have had no chance to live.

Six years on, we pop into the cemetery from time to time, parking outside the gates and walking along the central driveway once again, with no tapping cane for company. Our other children inevitably run between graves of unknown people, occasionally intrigued by unusual names on headstones.

Despite the distant buzz from the cars on the by-pass, the cemetery is a peaceful place now, calming even; especially in the summer, when the beeches and oaks are in leaf and outside noises are muted.

We planted a few snowdrops and primroses around Joshua’s grave a while back; the sight of them puts a spring in my step. Our grief for him has lessened; but not our loss, or our love.