Jo Cox’s widower has spoken about the awful moment he discovered his wife had been killed and how he broke the news to their two young children.

 

Brendan Cox said the news of Jo’s death “was like a grenade going off inside me.”

 

The MP was murdered almost a year ago when an extremist shot and stabbed her outside the town library in Birstall, West Yorkshire.

 

Brendan has since written a book called Jo Cox- More in Common where he reveals his heartbreak and that of his children at losing their mother.

 

Brendan had been in London when he received news that Jo had been injured. While on a train home he received a call from Jo’s sister Kim with the devastating news that Jo was dead, according to The Mirror.

 

 

A stranger on the train tried to comfort him as he sobbed on the train. “I don’t know if it would have been any worse or any better if I’d been anywhere else, or if I’d been with someone,” he said.

 

 “It feels like an explosion or a hand grenade going off inside you. And then you’re a just a shell really and retreat into shock mixed with collapse.”

 

His thoughts turned to his innocent young children Lejla and Cuillin who were now left without a mother. Lejla was just three and Cuillin was five years old at the time.

 

Not knowing how to break the news, Brendan turned to child psychologist friends for advice.

 

“They said to be very open and honest from the start,” he said. “Not to have any metaphors or mysteries like she’d gone to sleep but to be really clear about the permanence of it and to answer their questions honestly. So, I followed their advice and that’s what I did.”

 

 

Brendan’s children found it hard to believe that their mum was dead and asked their heartbroken dad if there was a way to bring her back to life.

 

 “I had to say, no, I couldn’t dream up a way to bring Mummy back to us. I explained to Cuillin that his good idea that scientists might be able to inject life into her wouldn’t work.”

 

He found that getting the children to write down memories of their mum seemed to help them and Cuillin even made up a song about her.

 

Brendan said he has tried to offer the children stability since Jo’s death. “I’ve done a lot to try to make them feel secure emotionally and not to change anything else in their life since Jo died so they’re in the same school, same home and everything is basically the same - apart from the one thing which is completely different.”

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