“I don’t like that angel,” he said.

And I laughed — the first time I had laughed standing in front of that grave in seven years.

“To be honest,” I said, “I don’t like it either.” A few days later, on his own, he told me he wanted to be called Toby again.

We had the false stone removed, and when the workers pulled the small empty casket from the ground, my son asked if we could fill the hole back in ourselves.

The cemetery manager looked baffled, but I agreed at once, and a friend brought two shovels, and we spent a whole morning working together in the sun, my boy and I filling in the grave where I had mourned an empty urn for seven years.