A WOMAN who was killed while driving her children to school in Co Meath this week was described at her funeral yesterday as a woman "dedicated to her children and the tasks of household duty".
Caroline Cox (32), died on Tuesday after her 10-year-old Mitsubishi Pajero 4x4 went out of control on a country road between Collinstown and Oldcastle.
Her four children, who were injured in the incident, were temporarily released from the Midlands Regional Hospital in Mullingar yesterday for her funeral.
They included Shona (13), who attended the funeral at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Mullingar on a hospital trolley, wheeled by paramedics. Shona's 15-year-old brother Seán, who had been due to celebrate his birthday on Tuesday, limped to the altar on crutches to perform a reading.
Three-year-old Courtney and seven-month-old JJ were also released for the ceremony from the hospital.
The other chief mourners were Ms Cox's husband, John, her father Joe, her sisters Tara and Nicola, her brother Barry and her grandmother, Mary. Her mother, Judy, is deceased.
In his homily, Fr Michael Kilmartin spoke of Ms Cox's dedication to her family and home.
Dropping her children to meet the school bus was "an everyday task no one thinks twice about doing", he said, but "for some reason things went wrong on Tuesday morning".
Symbolic gifts placed on the altar included a book, as Ms Cox loved to read, perfume - which she was always borrowing from her sisters - and a family photograph.
Fr Kilmartin said it should never be said that the death of a person "in the prime of her young life" was the will of God.
John Cox and Caroline Masterson had grown up together, he recalled, neighbours across the road from each other on Patrick Street in Mullingar. They had married young in the same cathedral.
"All too often, relationships that start out early at a young age don't last. But this relationship, this marriage, did."
Mr Cox had never needed a key to his home because his wife was always at home when he came in from work. "Home meant everything to Caroline," he said. The family had made plans to blow out Seán's birthday candles together before the crash on Tuesday.
Ms Cox was laid to rest in Ballyglass Cemetery after the funeral Mass.