NEW YORK (WFLA) – When it comes to dealing with the death of one’s mother, it’s never easy. For one New York family, a tragic mix-up made a tough situation even worse when they discovered that their mother was not the woman in the coffin.

Leroy and Errol McDonald are heartbroken over what happened when their 81-year-old mother Val-Jean McDonald died of lung cancer in December.

“We had a funeral… It wasn’t our mother in there,” Errol McDonald told WCBS-TV.

The family even had an open casket service at the Union Baptist Church, in Harlem, with hundreds of people.

“All across the world people came to say goodbye to my mom and, unfortunately, it wasn’t our mom,” he said.

It turns out McCall’s Bronxwood Funeral Home made a terrible mistake. They sent the wrong woman’s body to the funeral service and then eventually to be cremated.

During the service  at the church, it was a 10-year-old grandson who noticed something wasn’t right and spoke up as only a child can.

“When I was up there looking at the woman, my son came and tapped me and said ‘Daddy that don’t look like Grandma Val’. We didn’t realize that till afterward because the woman looked so much like my mother. We figured after so long in the hospital that when you have stage four cancer that it would actually change you, like your appearance, your look … would totally be different,” McDonald stated. 

James Alston, the funeral home owner, had no comment when questioned about the incident.

A funeral home spokesperson said they “have been in business for 50 years and certainly nothing like this has ever happened before. We have expressed to the affected families our acute distress and sorrow over this occurrence, and we’re reimbursing the McDonald’s for all costs associated with the funeral.”

Two state agencies are investigating just how a licensed funeral home could make such a tragic mistake.