14 DAY TRIAL // A woman is holding on to her dead son by mummifying him18 years since his passing. Tsiuri Kvaratskhelia lives in the Eurasian country of Georgia and her odd way of preserving her son has never been reported to authorities.
Joni Bakaradze died when he was 22 years old, but not before having a son of his own. Kvaratskhelia claims that she has tried to conserve his body so that her grandson can create a bond with his dead father.
“He wanted his kid to see him that way. I believe from that point on the kid started to love his father,” she says, according to a report by the Mirror.
For a long time, Joni has had his clothes removed and changed with fresh ones.
“For 10 years I've been changing his clothes on his birthday. Only the past four years I was unable to do so. He was a good man, a good husband, not the way he is now,” his mother explains.
The mummification process is performed by dabbing the sheets covering the remains in alcohol, an idea which has come to Tsiuri in a dream.
“One night I had a dream when a voice told me to treat Joni using by rubbing alcohol so from then on I've being using wet sheets dipped in alcohol to preserve the body,” she recalls.
She stuck to the process religiously until recently when she started incurring health issues. When the task is not performed, the remains change color.
“You must not leave the body without the sheets overnight as the skin will turn black as charcoal.
“I was sick lately and could not tend to his body, that had an effect on him. [...] My son is handsome. When I use the sheets his skin will be white again and everything will be normal,” she describes.