Letter to Matt at the beginning of the 7th year since he's been gone.

Dear Matt, 

Another Christmas and New Year have come and gone. As I packed away the Christmas tree into it's box, I was thinking how long it was since I first bought it. It is a lovely imitation spruce, and still looks good today. Well, I finally remembered it was 1999! You were in your first year of work at a Computer Company, and had brought your future wife to stay with us all for Christmas. I have it on the photo of us all, on Christmas Day, alongside your young brother, the two of us, and you and the one you would marry in November 2000.    

   It still looks good today. After 14 years. How can it be so long?It seems like another lifetime away now. I cannot remember being completely happy since then. And it is a fallacy to say that "time heals" . How could it? We bear the scars of grievous loss. A parent should not have to lose their child, Matt. But thousands do, across the world. I do know that the passage of time helps us to learn how to cope. How to begin remember, without a total collapse  into the maelstrom of the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic event.  

 

I read the blogs of other grieving parents, 

I find this touching, as it is like being part of a community which is seeking to make sense of their lives here and now. How to go on. How to remember their children. It is that remembering which is so very important to all of us, it keeps them alive. 

Some of them contact me, and some write comments, which I find very touching. The fact that they can remember you Matt, in the words I write and the photos I post, is a comfort to me. 

I looked for your words that I found after you died, kept in a box of odds and ends, alongside a photo you had taken on New Year's Eve 2005. 

Our first New Year's Eve without you was so completely awful I wanted to howl and curl up under a duvet. The weather outside was equally stormy, matching my mood. There was no comforting me. I felt as though my insides were ripped out. 

Yet, today, after 6 complete years without you, and it will be 7 in September, We are learning that we can go on living and enjoying some of what our lives have to offer. 

But, Matt, as I packed away the tree, I was thinking of you and my heart lurched. 

Your words on that New Year's Eve are now so poignant. You were never to see the end of 2006.      

So, I post your photos, and the ones you took, and like me, you had a camera handy.    

So, Matt, there will always be that sense of missing you, underlying our walk into 2013.
 Forever loved, forever remembered.
Mumxx

New Year's Eve 2012

For the past 6 years  we have shunned the razzmatazz of New Year's Eve, because it represents for us the end of another year without Matt. 

This year we had a break with tradition and went to see the new film of The Hobbit. Matt was a great fan of Tolkien and loved the cinematic productions of The Lord of the Rings. 

In fact, his brother chose a track from the last film in the trilogy to be played as we came to the end of his committal at the local crematorium.  

He would have loved this new film! It made us smile to think of it. 

Then we had been invited to spend the evening with a friend and her two teenagers and their noisy gaggle of buddies. 

They were in two teams, the daughter heading up one and the brother the other. It was good to be in their raucous competitive company. The quiz had been compiled as a quiz night, and there were prizes on offer! Each section was different, and during the course of the evening, these included hilarious mimes, and attempted sketches, to illustrate the clues. 

We always hosted a New Year's Eve party here in times past, and before Matt was of an age where he went to other venues. These were times of laughter and silly games. Matt bringing some of his friends to join in. His younger brother Alan, had one or two of his own.              

  Now Alan is married and his next child expected in 6 weeks time. Samuel, now 15 months old, reminds us so much of the uncle he will never know. He has a sunny, smiling face, and for the moment at least is of a placid nature. Much as Matt used to be at the same age.          
It can bring back such memories of how it felt to hold him close and sit and play with him and his toys. A tug on the heart of loss.

Matt at half time at his beloved
Aston Villa game,
 2003.  

So here we stand at the gateway of 2013, and we go on. But we are going towards a day somewhere in the unknown future, when we will all be reunited alongside the One who holds Matt safe, and who is our constant strength and hope,the One he followed and loved, Jesus.        
So I finish with the words from the evocative song which filled that packed chapel as we said our final goodbye. For us, Matt had

Best man at his friend's wedding. 1999

made his journey, his "ship" metaphorically speaking, had taken him home.  
Into the West. from Lord of the Rings 

Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to journey's end

Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across the distant shore

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see 
All of your fears will pass away

Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?

Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come
To carry you home

Dawn will turn to silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass

Hope fades
Into the world of night
Through shadows falling
Out of memory and time

Don't say
We have come now to the end
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping

What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?

Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come
To carry you home

And dawn will turn to silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsDji3Z7t3s