When Camilla lost her 21-year-old son, she couldn’t afford the funeral. But the friends pulled together and made sure Jonathan had a decent ceremony.
Sjalabais!
– That’s what Jonathan always said when he entered the front door.
Camilla Steensrud (41) is moved when she talks about her son. A son who only turned 21 years old. Death from acute cardiac arrest.
– Parents shouldn’t bring their children to a funeral.
But on December 13, he had to go the hard way to the church to bury his son. A son with whom she had a very special relationship.
Jonathan was born on June 24, 2001. He was Camilla’s firstborn.
– We had a very close relationship. It’s always been me and him.
Was Romerikes Blad who wrote first on this topic.
Four days have now passed, and this Saturday is special for Camilla.
For he has learned that Jonathan’s friends in the bank robber circle in Jessheim will be leading a motorcade from Nittedal to Kepler’s star in Gardermoen.
– Now I’m a little excited. It hurts a little, but it also feels very good. That they do this for my son is absolutely wonderful.
Jonathan loved cars and drove an old stack of a 98 model BMW. But it was destroyed when the head gasket blew a while back.
In freezing temperatures in Gardermoen on Saturday, she saw the long line of cars that arrived to honor her son.
Camilla lives in Hagan in Nittedal with her partner, youngest son and dog Gaby. Until November 25, there were four people in her house, but one night the unthinkable happened.
Jonathan had worked in kindergarten and later went to his second job as a bartender in Oslo. He was actually going to a party after work, but he was feeling a little tired when he got home at half past twelve.
– He was in very good spirits and made himself eight slices of bread with liver paste, which was his favorite condiment, and asked me if I would put him in new bed linen. When I did, I heard him snoring and realized he was laying down on the couch.
“I love your mom. I love you too, my boy”
That was the last thing they said to each other.
– Indescribable sound
Camilla didn’t want to wake Jonathan, but she spread a blanket over him before going downstairs to bed herself.
She woke up to strange noises.
– It was a terrible sound, indescribable. As if she was gasping for air.
She ran upstairs and saw that he was lying on the couch shaking and his mouth was dripping. Couldn’t reach her and she called AMK.
According to Camilla, Jonathan had hidden epilepsy, which causes seizures at night. Also, he had heart valve disease CRAZY and rhythm disturbances. He has been under observation at the Rikshospitalet since he was eight years old.
– I’ve never seen him like this before
After the AMK conversation, the ambulance arrived quickly. While she waited, Camilla performed CPR on her son. Her youngest son, 15, also woke up and helped with the rescue.
– It was so hard, I hit everything I could and broke his sternum. My heart had stopped, but I restarted it. It was very tiring, but I continued until the ambulance arrived.
The ambulance people gave her a lot of shocks, and even then she realized it was going to go wrong, she recalls.
– I knew. I’ve never seen him like this before. When they couldn’t take a pulse, I knew it.
Jonathan was hooked up to a heart machine and taken straight to the Rikshospitalet.
Camilla and her younger son were taken to the Nittedal emergency room. After a few hours she arrived at the Rikshospitalet, where she met Jonathan’s father, who had come from Western Norway.
At 11, two doctors came out.
– I saw it in them. This was no good. “We can’t find any brain activity on him except in his forehead,” it said. “If he wakes up, he’ll have brain damage.”
Fear of dying
Camilla says they had talked about death together. His illnesses have made him anxious about dying.
– Jonathan and I had agreed that if one of us became a “vegetable” we would see to it that it was over.
She had also thought about how she would remind him if he disappeared.
– “Le, take me on the road, shoot for me. Don’t order any damn cuts at the funeral,” he told me.
They had also agreed on songs at the funeral, and one of them was to be Jahn Teigen’s “Adieu,” Camilla says in a tear-choked voice.
– It was my gold. My dear. I always called him “Honey”.
– Fly, fly high
At Riksen’s hospital bed, she thinks it wouldn’t be ethical to keep him alive: “He shouldn’t be lying there for decoration.”
– “Now you will let yourself go, my boy. Fly! Fly high, but you have to watch out for me.”, I told him. And then the car was turned off.
When she left the room, her strength ran out.
– Then I went straight to the floor. My legs gave out under me and I was completely exhausted. Finished.
Friends lined up
After a few days it occurred to her. She didn’t have much money for the funeral.
– I don’t have 100,000 NOK in my account. I had no intention of burying my son.
In the days following her death, she received many messages from friends and acquaintances asking how they could help. So she contacted Jonathan’s father and they decided to start a fundraiser in Spleis.
– Soon after, I got a message from a friend saying “Now it’s NOK 10,000”. I replied “what! The harvest has just begun,” he says.
And the money came from about 300 friends and right after the funeral the amount reached NOK 105,000.
– Then a weight disappeared from my shoulders. Now I could focus on the funeral, says Camilla, who works as a client advisor in Montera.
– I was worried that Jonathan would have a beautiful and dignified funeral and spared nothing, even booked a solo, he says.
Jonathan was buried in Vestre Gravlund in Oslo. The family moved to Nittedal from Oslo just three years ago and she wanted to bury him near those who knew him.
