Another milestone birthday. 8th February 2012.

Well Matt, last week we had the usual spate of February birthdays. Mine and dad's falling within 4 days of each other, and various friends on either side! Always a scramble going out and buying the presents for 6 different people!  But it's fun. Only this year was very different. Your dad reached his 60th birthday on 8th February. It was another of those family times when you are so keenly missed. A blank space, which your presence used to occupy. It will always be so. You are frozen in time at  the age of 30. One of your old friends reached 30 this week, on the same day as your dad. And I know as your brother approaches his 30th in a couple of years, he feels it keenly. 

Matt. 

  

 However we had a visit from him and his wife and our lovely grandson for the weekend of my birthday, and we had a lovely time. Not without it's underlying tacitly understood sadness, which runs beneath like an underground stream.
We walk above it on the surface, going on in our everyday lives, not always aware of the stream below. Until something triggers a memory of you, which has the ability to reduce us to tears, or to feel the familiar stab of pain. Only natural for someone who was so loved. Then the stream bubbles to the surface and sometimes overflows for awhile, until the pain recedes.

We wish you could've been there with us all.
It was nonetheless a good week.
Your dad declared it one of the best birthday's he had celebrated. Our friends certainly went to town! Some of them making a dinner the evening of the 9th, followed by a wonderfully crazy game of "Racing Grannies"!  This was a Scalextric track with a difference! Instead of cars, we raced the grannies round and round! All this followed a glass of champagne to toast the birthday boy. Lots of merriment!!
I had a picture of you in my mind's eye, reduced to tears with laughing. Oh how we miss your laughter.

  So your photo is sitting surrounded by cards, and the mantlepiece and hearth overflowing with them!
He had lots of thoughtful gifts and we ourselves spent the day in London, as a treat travelling First Class on the train.
His work colleagues gave him a presentation and a specially made cake.
So, as I write this thinking of you, we are still surrounded by all the cards and flowers, and next week we are going to visit one of your old friends, now a 7 hour plane trip away. I have not seen them since your Thanksgiving in September 2006. Your dad met him and his wife in Beirut, in 2009. But I could not go, as I was sorting out the sale of your grandad's home.
They have a little girl now. It will be poignant stepping off the plane to greet them. When your dad met him at Beirut airport, he was wearing the England shirt you had bought for him. Not bad for an American! But it was a special show of the affection and regard he has for you.
Well, time to go.
Thinking of you, love you, forever.
Mumxx  
 

Christmas is coming again, the sixth without you.............

 Well, Matthew,
Here we are again, it's Christmas time. This year it is very different. There will only be your dad and I on Christmas Day, for the first time I can ever remember since we have been married. And on Christmas Eve it is 41 years since we got engaged.We will spend Christmas Eve with your brother and his wife and our lovely grandson, now 11weeks old. His mum said to him that when he is old enough they will tell him about his Uncle Matthew, (who would have been 35 this year.)      

Our Christmas tree this year. December 2011

I have decorated the tree and hung lights outside, as I love Christmas time - and as we've said many times before, so did you. Only I feel a sense of sadness in it all. There have been major changes in our family once again which you were not able to see or to be there. Two more of your cousins were married, and weddings make the lack of your presence more noticeable. Your nephew was born. And your young wife remarried, and is making her home in America. We are really pleased for her. She is moving into a large family.      

Smudge the rabbit and Rudolf the reindeer. December 2011 

So, Matthew, I've included a photo of Smudge the rabbit and Rudolf the reindeer. Why?

They are both things which were very special.

Smudge the rabbit was bought for my mum by my dad years ago. She died 21 years ago this year,aged just 70. After she died Smudge lived at the bottom of the stairs in dad's home, sitting in a wicker basket and wrapped up in a scarf. When dad could no longer live on his own, Smudge went with him to his Residential home and sat on his bed.

Inanimate things can be "real" when they are cherished for the memories they hold or simply because of the person to whom they belong. 

I now have Smudge here. He sits on the bed, still wrapped in his scarf, a reminder of my mum and dad. 

Rudolf was given to you Matt, one Christmas, by your wife, and we all laughed as he looks like a reindeer with attitude and a face that is full of mischief! 

After you left us Rudolf took on a different significance, going everywhere with the one who gave him to you. But it became time to close the door finally and begin a new chapter, so Rudolf is now here with us. 

A tangible reminder of a cheeky grin, a sometimes irritated "don't suffer fools gladly" stare and a heart that cared for others. 

He went to work with your dad the other day, as there was a competition for the most creatively dressed desk in the office. 

And he was a big hit, even though no prize was won!      

So on our sixth Christmas without you since September 2006, I love you, I miss you and hold you in my heart. 

Mumxx   

Return to the Lizard, Cornwall. October 2011.

Footprints in the sand

I came down to the Lizard a few days ago, to spend some time on my own in the place I love so well. The place we all used to stay as a family, along with your grandad, year in year out, and where we had such happy times. I saw my new grandson last week, your nephew, and it was a wonderful experience. I am going to love being a granny! I have spent the days in quiet reflection each morning, and the afternoons walking the cliff paths, and along the empty beach at Polurrian. I can hear echoes of your voice mingled with that of grandad and the others and it makes me smile. We will never lose you, Matt, you are forever with us.  And on days like today, walking along the beach, for once, I remember you without the sense of loss.                  

Polurrian Cove. 

Letter to Matthew

Timelord and Teapot Sutton Park September 2011The new grandparents! 

October 2011

Dear Matthew ,
On Wednesday 5th October 2011, your brother and his wife had their first baby. A boy.
He is called Samuel Robin. You would have like that.
All kinds of mixed emotions have been swirling round in me for weeks, surrounding this new addition to our family.
All mixed up with recollections of your birth, your brother's birth, and how we were so overjoyed to welcome our own children into the world.

I wish you were here to see your new nephew.

It is difficult to explain to others how it can be hard when we celebrate another important milestone without you. We are so very, very, happy and at the same time it highlights the empty space which you filled with your living presence.

A proud dad and his first son, Matthew. April 1976

Of course it makes us grandparents! Wow! And it is an amazing feeling!

Matthew holding his new brother.September 1984

Matt holding his 3 month old brother, December 1984 

We will go to see our new grandson soon, and I can't wait to hold him. A whole new chapter beginning, in a whole new life. So, Matt, I know you would've been a great uncle. And one day, when our grandson is grown, I expect his brother may tell him about you...................Love always Mumxx      

9/10 and 9/11. A weekend of reflection.........................

Lizard Point. Cornwall. England  A quiet moment. 

A father remembers his son. WTC New York USA

Above Grasmere and Rydal Water.The Lake District. England.

This year saw our 5th Anniversary of 9/10 alongside the 10 year Anniversary of 9/11.
I looked at the photo of the father simply placing his hand on his son's name and I was deeply moved.
A world of pain separates him from us, and yet I somehow felt connected. Although I cannot even begin to contemplate how they feel, constantly seeing how their loved ones died like an ever running video, over and over again. Year in, year out.
But for them, 10 years on, the important thing is that they are not forgotten. And the grief is still palpable. Anniversaries will always be that way.
 
We can choose to remember our 9/10 in the way in which each of us feels is most helpful. All of us who were joined togther by Matt and Chris's deaths share a deep bond. It is important for us to remain in contact, Chris's family and very close friends, our little family and very close friends.We see each other throughout the year, share stories about them, laugh and weep over them, and encourage each other along.  
And in the week before the 10th we are once again sending each other cards, exchanging phone calls, talking about them, and yes, grieving them too. But this is a shared grief and it serves to strengthen, as we all have the need to remember.
Stephen and I had a few days in the Lake District in the quiet Langdale Valley.
On the 10th we went for a long walk over the fell and down into Rydal Water. As we were walking along we received several mobile phone text messages from our friends and family to say they were thinking of us. (As we indeed were thinking of them.)
We received several cards. Touching messages written inside, and one with anecdotes about Matt. I keep all these in a special box.
It was a peaceful reflective day, and after walking on into Ambleside, where we refuelled on toasted tea cakes, (me!) and Borrowdale tea bread and cheese(him!) we then walked the next 3 and a half miles back to where we were staying. A round trip of about 7 miles. We enjoyed the views inspite of the showers, and saw several deer. One obligingly jumped the fence practically under our noses as we crept up to have a closer look.
Such graceful creatures.
So we passed by another date forever etched in our hearts.
And we go on into another year.
 

We will remember you on September 10th 2011.

Matt on Helm Crag, Grasmere. July 2006. 

September once more...........5 years on,

June 2005

California 2005 Taking photos! 

Lizard Point. Cornwall September 2007

Well, Matt, 
Here we are again, on the threshhold of the month of September. I used to love the sense of it, the autumn arriving,however, each year since you've been gone, I say to myself, "It will be different this time, and I am doing ok" 
Then I catch the sight of the first leaves beginning to change colour, my heart aches. 

Matt taking photos. Cadgwith  Cornwall  

                                                          So, I am  not going to write much this time,                                                               and                                                                             simply place your photos in this place. 

April 2005

4th July 2006

Our son, first born, and deeply loved..................

Matt 1977 Cowplain Hampshire 

Padstow, Cornwall, 1980

Morocco 1999

So, here are some of the memories..............

Matt April 1980

Matt at Edgbaston Cricket Ground

River  Rothay , Grasmere, July 2006