Family’s agonising goodbye to Trashaun

A grieving aunt yesterday turned the heart-breaking funeral of her teenage nephew into a battle cry to save children with cancer from falling through the social services cracks.

It was a profoundly sad send-off for 14-year-old Trashaun Atwell, who spent his July 24 birthday wishing for a miracle that would see him receiving a bone marrow transplant to overcome the aggressive acute myeloid leukaemia. He died 16 days later surrounded by his parents and relatives, with a single tear falling from his eye when the family finally revealed to him he was in his dying moments.

The details of Trashaun’s struggle for treatment were further revealed during the service at Abundant Life Assembly where his blue casket passed through a guard of honour created by fellow students of The St Michael School, the school band played a musical tribute and staff member David Briggs rendered Michael Jackson’s Gone Too Soon.