BOWMANVILLE, Ont. - On a day when three of his comrades were killed in a roadside blast in Afghanistan, family and friends of Trooper Darryl Caswell gathered to remember a soldier who died under tragically similar circumstances in the war-torn country.
"A mother can never prepare for this,'' Caswell's mother, Darlene Cushman, said as she eulogized her 25-year-old son during his funeral service Wednesday, her voice choked with emotion and barely audible.
Then, gesturing to his coffin below, she said, "half my heart is lying below me.''
Caswell died last Wednesday while riding in the lead vehicle in what the Canadian Forces call a combat logistics patrol, a dangerous mission that involves restocking forward operating bases and soldiers in the field with everything from ammunition and equipment to rations and water.
The convoy was headed to the district of Khakriz in northwestern Kandahar province when it struck an improvised explosive device about 40 kilometres north of the city of Kandahar.
Caswell was the 57th Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, Rev. Joe Lafave and Capt. Lee Lambert, a padre with the Royal Canadian Dragoons, led the military funeral service for Caswell at Trinity United Church in this community east of Toronto.
Flags at the tourism centre and Memorial Hospital in the town where Caswell was born were lowered to half-mast.
Both the main level and the balcony of the church were filled with several hundred people. A mix of young and old, military and civilian, came to pay their final respects to a man known by his friends as "Cas.''
Many inside the church held small, paper Canadian flags.
Shortly after 3 p.m., a piper led Caswell's flag-draped coffin into the church, where Lafave said the soldier was baptized. Caswell's hat, a single medal on a black pillow, and a knife, rested atop the casket.
Cushman clutched a tan-coloured quilt as Lafave led the mourners in singing "Amazing Grace.'' She made it through a few strains before tears doubled her shaking body over.
Cushman told mourners she and her son shared a special bond and that it broke her heart when Caswell moved out at age 12 to live with his father.
She said her son had a fondness for tattoos, and planned to have a pair of angel wings tattooed on his back. She said she would have a small pair inked on herself in his honour.
During her eulogy, Caswell's stepmother, Christine Caswell, asked mourners to stand and applaud the members of the military, who were sitting on the left side of the church.
"We are so proud of you,'' she told them.
After the ceremony, the corner of Division St. and Church St. filled with sympathizers and curious onlookers as Caswell's body was loaded into a waiting hearse and slowly driven away amid the crowd's applause.
Caswell was a member of the Royal Canadian Dragoons, based in Petawawa, Ont. He was deployed with the Reconnaissance Squadron from the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment battle group.
Caswell was scheduled to return home in July, in time for his 26th birthday.
The funeral came on the same day three Canadian soldiers on a resupply mission were killed. Their unarmoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, bringing the death toll for the Canadian military in the country to 60.
General Tim Grant, commander of Task Force Afghanistan, says the vehicle was travelling between two checkpoints less than a kilometre apart when it struck the improvised explosive device.
No other soldiers were injured in the incident.
