In the days after the horrific murder of MP Jo Cox, her husband Brendan faced one of the toughest decisions of his life.

Should he let his young children see their mum’s body?

In the end he let Cuillin, five, and three-year-old Lejla make the decision and both wanted to see her for one last time and say goodbye.

This is revealed in an extract from his new book Jo Cox: More in Common.

Should I take the kids to see Jo’s body? All my instincts screamed No at even the thought of them being brought in to the same room as their mum’s body.

To make the judgment, I decided I had to see Jo’s body first. I found it brutally hard. But I also realised, a day later, I couldn’t really remember how Jo looked in the mortuary.

Whenever I thought of her in subsequent days, it was of my wife looking full of life. That snapshot of her lying dead couldn’t challenge the lifetime of images we’d built together.

After consulting child psychologists helping me, I decided to ask the children. They both said they wanted to come to see mummy. They wanted to say goodbye to her.

They brought lots of drawings they wanted to put in the coffin. That morning someone had sent us an envelope filled with shiny love hearts. They looked like confetti and so I slipped a packet in my pocket after Lejla said we should share them with mummy.

At the undertakers we were taken to a special room. I told the children again what to expect. We went in and had to arrange chairs so that Cuillin and Lejla could stand on them to see into the coffin.

We were with Jo for not much more than a few minutes, but it was long enough for our children to reach out and hold their mum’s hand one last time. They touched her hair and spoke to her.

Book Cover: Jo Cox - More In Common
Book Cover: Jo Cox - More In Common

“We love you, mummy,” they both said, as they sprinkled love hearts over Jo. I didn’t want them to stay long and I persuaded them, gently, that we needed to leave. They were upset outside the room. I felt unsure whether I had done the right thing after all. But we held each other and the tears eased.

Afterwards, I noticed a big difference. The questions tumbled out of them. It was as if they’d processed the reality of Jo’s death and accepted she was gone. They were still stri­cken with sadness but wanted a new truth.

Lejla was no longer asking if we could make mummy out of wood and bring her back to life or if we would see her in a different world. Instead, they wanted to know why this man had killed mummy. What had happened to him?

Their questions were not full of hate or bitterness. They were legitimate queries I tried to answer as best as I could.

They went to sleep that night more easily than at any time since Jo had died.

As well as at home, the aftershock of Jo’s death continued to reverberate across the country and around the world. Parliament was recalled and all campaigning around the EU referendum was suspended.

All MPs headed to Westminster in honour of their fallen colleague – my wife and the mother of Cuillin and Lejla. The three of us, with my and Jo’s immediate families, were invited to attend that extraordinary session. I had been advised again by the psychologists that I should include the children.

It was soon time to enter the packed chamber. The sight that met us was striking. Every MP wore the white rose of Yorkshire, for Jo. An empty seat, where Jo would have sat, featured two roses. One was white for Yorkshire, the other was red for Labour.

We felt the collective gaze of the House as Cuillin, Lejla and I were shown to the front row of the gallery. I avoided eye contact with anyone. I feared falling apart if I saw my own pain reflected in their faces. I was moved by all the tributes, especially those from people who knew Jo personally. But Jo’s empty seat could not be avoided.

Afterwards, we headed for Ederlezi – the boat where we lived – for the first time since Jo’s death. Suddenly, Lejla shouted with glee: “Look! Daddy, it’s beautiful!”

We stared at the boat in wonder. It had been draped in a thousand flowers.

Returning home without Jo felt terribly raw. I had been dreading the impact it might have on the kids, but suddenly they were transfixed and enchanted.

Once we climbed down the rickety wooden staircase into the hull, everything looked the same. Wherever we looked we saw reminders of Jo. This was a new pain. But at least we were back where we belonged, at home, on our boat.

Jo and Brendan Coxon their new barge Ederlezi

But a few weeks later it was time to face saying goodbye to Jo. We had decided that the funeral would be intimate. In a couple of months we’d celebrate Jo’s life, at the cottage, with all our friends. But only those closest to us would attend her cremation in Batley.

I held my children’s hands. Cuillin and Lejla sat either side of me, having stationed themselves at a window each so they could look out at everyone lining the streets of Batley.

I could hardly take it in. We were being driven to Jo’s funeral. We had expected that hundreds of people would turn out in honour of Jo, but we were deeply moved that thousands packed the pavements.

The diversity of those people was inspiring. Workmen stood alongside British Asian kids who had been let out of local schools to pay tribute. People poured out of shops and stood beside university students who had travelled from Leeds.

Everyone thronged together on the streets. Road after road was filled. Ordinary people, from extraordinarily varied communities and backgrounds, were united in respect for Jo and all she stood for as their MP.

But the tears being shed were more for Jo as a normal person, who had felt empathy for all people, no matter what they did or where their parents had been born.

The hearse drove more slowly than usual so children could throw flowers on to the bonnet. Many people waved to the kids, even as they wept, and Lejla waved at everyone she saw, while Cuillin said something simple but profound: “I knew that people loved mummy – but I didn’t know this many people loved her.”

Extracted from Jo Cox: More In Common, by Brendan Cox. Published by Two Roads on June 13, £16.99. Copyright © 2017 The Jo Cox Foundation Trading Limited.