It's your birthday once more.....23rd April 2013.

 Dear Matt, The cherry trees outside our house are not going to be in blossom for your birthday this year. I took this picture at a friend's the other day, She has a very small tree.
The winter was so long and cold this time that spring is still trying valiantly to struggle through!
    Well, here I am again, and it will be your birthday on Tuesday. Each year we, your dad and I,  have marked your day by doing something special. This time we are going to Oxford. I have lots of photos that you took when you went with two good friends in the past. You visited various sites of interest, including the pub where C S Lewis spent some of his time. It was a gloriously hot day then!
There is such a lot to see and do, that we will be spoilt for choice! But we find it is good to remember you and talk about you. You are always in our thoughts.
It would have been your 37th birthday next week. Your brother is 29 years old in September, married, and has two lovely children. I love being a granny! We go to see them all as often as we are able spending the day there yesterday.  The fact that your younger brother is now a father is just one of those things which has changed since that fateful night in September 2006. Time inexorably goes on as you stand frozen at that point, forever 30 years old.                    

Matt at Playgroup in Cowplain, Hampshire. Aged 3 and a half.   

 Here are a few pictures out of your life, snapshots in time which has now forever stopped, memories of when you were here with us all.
For those memories we are eternally thankful. Our lives go on, and although they go on without you, there have been happy times among the sad ones. Times of being enriched by friendship, and mutual support, times of laughter instead of tears. Times of enjoying new experiences, whilst remembering those which we shared when you were still here. I never felt I could live again.......but I find I can. You are so deeply embedded in me that I know I will always have you with me.

   Next weekend your dad is umpiring his first cricket game of the season, and has decided to wear your cricket boots, as they have spikes and are safer on damp grass. They fit him perfectly.
His tribute to you on your birthday week.          

Watering his Grandad Smith's roses. Summer 1978

Southsea beach. August 1980.  

Matt, Rougemont, France.  Aged 19. 

Matt in cricket whites. (having removed boots!)

Matt and his brother fooling around!

          Lizard Point Cornwall. Last resting place of our lovely son                                                                                                    

Happy Birthday Matt! Till we all meet again.   

Mother's Day March 10th 2013

Mother and two sons 

 It is just over 4 weeks since I last wrote here about Matt. This is our 7th Mother's Day, (Sunday 10th March) without him. I have been looking through the old photos, and in those years which have passed, new memories have been made for our family. It is like building, very slowly, layer upon layer, a new kind of life. Often people refer to it as "A Different Life". It is a hard journey to begin, crushed and bewildered.
We began in September 2006.
At first it is almost impossible to comprehend that we can live without the one we all loved so much, and still do. And yet....gradually over those years, I have realised that love does not diminish, I do not have to fight to remember him, as he is there all the time, in our waking and sleeping and a thousand times in between.                     

Matt and Alan. The Lizard.2004 

 All those good times we had as a family, on holiday in France and Cornwall, or birthdays, Christmases, Easters, other celebrations, will never be forgotten. Each one precious. The daily routine of a family. First school days, University, leaving home, getting married, new job, all recorded and logged. Only you never expect to log a death.
When Matt's brother was married in 2008, Matt was no longer with us.

Alan's Graduation  July 2008.

Alan's "Best Man" paying a touching tribute to him at the end of the traditional "Best Man" speech at the wedding.    
When our grandchildren arrived, in October 2011 and end of January 2013, Matt was not there to see them.
It is always and forever to be like this.
I knew that Mother's Day was coming up on the calendar, but it did not disturb me much until the  middle of this past week.

I began to think of Matt, and, in my mind's eye, (as I have a very visual memory), I could see him,  in snapshots of time.
After he was married in November 2000 he and his new wife lived relatively close by.
Close enough to drop in. Usually each Sunday for lunch. And sometimes a drop in during the week.  
A key turning in the front door lock and Matt coming in as he did, saying
"I just thought I'd come and see you."
Then a hug.
 If  I was outside in the back garden, the backdoor would open. Matt stepping outside and loping up the path to see me. Then we had a cup of tea sitting on the patio for a chat.
One day, when I was quite ill with gastric 'flu he visited for awhile and sat on my bed, (his dad  having to be at work.) Going beyond the call of duty unasked when I was vomiting. These things I will never forget.
He had begun to set up his own little company as a programmer, working from home, so he had flexible hours.
When my own mother was seriously ill in hospital in the town where I was born, in 1990, he came to see her with us, and sat at the end of her bed and rubbed her sore feet. I will not forget.
She died not long afterwards.
   I don't see him through rose coloured glasses, but I was proud of him. We often clashed, having similar temperaments, but because of it we had an affinity. That I miss terribly. He had a caring heart.
This is why one evening this past week, as I arrived at the home of one of our friends, she remarked " How are you?"
I didn't have to say it was Mother's Day coming along. She could see it written in my eyes.
    And as the old saying goes,
"The eyes are the window to the soul"

     My "soul" reflects forever the loss of my firstborn son.

Matt Ullswater July 2006.

 
   So as I look at this photo, taken in half shadow, the camera looking into the sun, I am mindful of the words in the Bible      

 

       
     

1 Corinthians 13:12

The Message (MSG)

^"12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!"

Until that day breaks and the shadows flee away, we will love you and remember you Matthew, until we meet again. 
    

Just one of those nights......

Dear Matt,

It's been a roller-coaster time emotionally the past two weeks. The beginning of February there are a lot of birthdays. Our granddaughter decided to arrive earlier than expected, (being due on 7th February) and made her appearance very precipitously on Wednesday teatime, January 30th. Weighing in at 8lb 5oz! 

I had a call from your brother at 6.10pm. I wondered if he was going to tell me she was on her way,when he said to me " Can you hear your new granddaughter" ! Such wonderful news. Mum and baby were home in a couple of days.      

Grandad! 

The previous Saturday, 26th January, we had gone to see them for our pre-birthday celebration, mine on the 4th February and Stephen's on the 8th. We had a lovely time, going out for a meal with our son, daughter-in-law and grandson, plus bump! My 16 month old grandson enjoyed taking the wrapper off our gifts later that afternoon, and when we came home in the evening, driving up the motorway, a now very familiar journey of an hour and forty five minutes, we never thought we would have a new grandchild in 4 days time.  

My new granddaughter b.30th January 2013

On my actual birthday, Monday, 4th February, I had the best present ever! Holding my new granddaughter for the very first time. Her brother is becoming used to the idea that she is there all the time! He simply pointed to her, fast asleep, when we arrived and then went on playing with his toys.    

Libby Joanna 4 days old. 

Why then, in the middle of the night could I not sleep? Yesterday, when I came in from shopping, a shaft of sunlight fell on the cards and gifts I had received previously. Your picture standing amongst them. It was quiet, and I listened to the silence, before I knew, what my heart knew already, one card was missing. Yours.      

Opening my birthday presents.
Saturday 25th January

There wasn't a voice at the end of the telephone saying "Happy Birthday Mum!"
There is the continual silence.
So in the midst of all the happiness and joy, there is a silence...............deep and profound.
      And just now, I received a text photo of our grandson giving his new sister a cuddle!
I wish you could see them.
I'm sure they would've loved their Uncle Matt!
     All this joy and excitement found me awake at 2.30am, for a couple of hours, I miss you so much, especially at times like these............ the tears fell.  
 
      So, Matt, another milestone, another birthday, and yet I say, as I read Psalm 91 yesterday,

You give rest to the weary
You bring strength to the weak
As they wait in your presence
There is grace for their need

So I’ll wait, I’ll wait
Yes I’ll wait, I’ll wait for you

I will say of the Lord he is my refuge
I will say of the Lord he is my strength
I will say of the Lord he is my shelter, my hiding place

You can come in the silence
You can come in the noise
Bringing peace in a moment
Bringing comfort and joy

So I’ll wait, I’ll wait
Yes I’ll wait, I’ll wait for you

I will say of the Lord he is my refuge
I will say of the Lord he is my strength
I will say of the Lord he is my shelter, my hiding place
I will come to the source all creation
I will drink from the well that never dries
I will draw from the one who won’t grow tired
The lord of all

And I’ll wait, I’ll wait
Yes I’ll wait, I’ll wait for you
I will wait, I’ll wait
Yes I’ll wait, I’ll wait for you

I will say of the Lord he is my refuge
I will say of the Lord he is my strength
I will say of the Lord he is my shelter, my hiding place
I will come to the source all creation
I will drink from the well that never dries
I will draw from the one who won’t grow tired
The lord of all

You give rest to the weary
You bring strength to the weak



    

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

When you walk through a storm........hold your head up high...

 My dear, dear Matthew,
A door opened once again this last week, unbidden and unexpected, back to the depths of grief I felt almost 6 years ago. A suddeness, a shaking, a dropping into the dark chasm of pain.
It swept me off my feet and squeezed the breath out of my body.
Maybe it was worse because I wasn't well for a few days and spent sleepless nights propped up with several pillows unable to breathe properly until the vicious 'flu like symptoms abated.

 Several days earlier we had welcomed into our home for a few days, your widow and her new husband, also called Matthew, and spent a few days getting to know him a little better. You would like him. He is a gentle soul. And it could not have been easy for him to come and stay, where there are photos of you all over the house. 

He met once again your brother and his wife and 1 year old son, when we had a family get together  last Sunday. 

But, and I say it honestly, after a while it became more apparent to me, as they left to tour around other places for a few days, that I was beginning to feel more emotional and painful. (Maybe the onset of the flu like virus did not exactly help.)

 When the house became quiet again, it felt strange. 

Not something I could control, which is always a scary place for me. Why? I asked myself ? Why now? 

Ok I wasn't well, but it was deeper than that. 

A door had been opened once again, into those awful days of early grief, when tiredness and pain were constant companions. This new relationship which has presented itself, only serves to highlight the fact that it is not you by her side anymore. Even when I know that, and accept it, wholeheartedly without question, liking him very much.      

It is a gaping hole, that can never be filled, or cemented in, even the depths of which can never be plumbed, nor healed, it goes down into the abyss, endless, vast and alone. 

You are gone. 

Gone from me, 

My child that I bore,

That I so loved and will do forever,

From your first breath 

Till your last 

When I was not able to hold you in my arms and wish you goodbye, 

And others gathered your broken body 

From that nightmare scene,

Whilst we were still unaware........

Then a Silence of you..............

No Longer a presence of you............

   

           

But our love for you will never die, and you will never be forgotten.

Forever your mumxxxx

A different life.........

My lovely son, contemplating as you sit by the candle light in your garden, the year that we lost you......
We are this week contemplating a visit from your widow.
Only she is bringing with her a new husband, also called Matthew. And her surname has changed.
I know that you met him, years ago, at the Christian festival Soul Survivor, and it is good that he knew you briefly.
She now lives and works in America, at the same Christian College as her husband in Dallas.

It is what we prayed for her, after the devastating loss, that she would one day meet someone again   with whom she could share her life.
And God has a way of being surprising at times!

BUT
We are facing a whole new different relationship, and with the sense of pleasure that we have to see her remarry and begin a new life, comes the immediate knowledge that it was because you died that the whole of our lives were altered and shattered on that awful night.

We are always in the process of rebuilding, and trying to make sense of where we are now.
But it is the "where we are now" that has to be faced each day that goes by.

This is another of those "first" experiences, in the same category as birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas.  

SO we greet a new couple this weekend for the first time, whom we have not seen since last year. Now almost married 12 months, and will negotiate the fact that it would have been your own Wedding Anniversary on Sunday. It seems so incomprehensible to grasp.
A bit like about to negotiate a minefield.........you never know how you are going to cope, or what will happen......except we have to go through it.

I miss you.

I found a letter someone had  written to us just after you died,
And I quote from it now......

" I struggle to make  sense of the death of Matthew and why you should have to go through such grief, But at the same time, I give thanks to God for the tremendous person Matthew was - his faith, his personality, his desire to serve God wholeheartedly."

We go on, without you, this weekend into territory as yet uncharted, holding Jesus' hand.  
May the Lord watch over you for us.

Mum  xxx