Awful, Awful Monday!

 Every night I have awoken with nightmares! God I hope that is not because of what you experienced that night! Every night i wake my husbands hand comforts me. It's OK honey, it's OK! It's not and he knows it's not but he tries to comfort me anyway. I now know why it is that I am so in love with this man. He is strong just like our son, even in the face of great fear! Even in the face of great loss, he stands strong, he say's he has to be there for all of us! 
 I search the internet for anything that will tell me that you didn't suffer that night, being a nurse makes it worse! I search the autopsy sites, how morbid I feel, all in the name of knowing that hopefully you went immediately. To know you suffered would only add to my grief! I look at sad songs, sad videos, sad articles, hoping to find some help with the thoughts I am having and these feelings. I feel as if I want to die! I want to go with you him so that he will not be alone. Then I am brought back to reality by my husband over and over again! He knows I am dying inside because he is as well! All our dreams for our son are gone. All the promise for the great things he would have done gone!
 Thank God for my best friend in all the world (my sister), my loving husband, and my daughters and the many friends that draw near to me I really think I would be gone as well! At this point in life I cannot see the part where it gets better, it is only getting worse. No matter what people say the fact of the matter is none of it brings back my sweet baby boy! Nothing makes this pain stop. My sweet, sweet best friend never leaves my side only to sleep. She comforts me and stays with me. Forever I am grateful that I have her. My darling daughter who i have so longed for, has made amends with me after an awful argument we had a year or so before, Mathew's death has brought us together again. We hold onto one another! She was the closest sibling with our son, the one that in the end will be the most devastated by this loss. She is pregnant with her first baby and our son was so looking forward to this birth! Why would he do this now? I ask God over and over, I pray and I cry!
 The funeral home, I medicate myself so that I won't remember a thing, I don't want to remember this and I will not accept that its real! Valium for days now, I cannot catch my breath without it! I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I cannot think! I cannot stop the ugly horrible thoughts that are keep going through my mind about that morning. They will not stop!
 We sit down with the funeral director, in my mind I want to run and hide but I can't! We make decisions for him, how can this be happening, we are picking out something to put on his cards that will be handed out at the funeral, oh God help me through this! We choose what he will wear and how he will look, remembering the bruise that extends from one ear to the other completely circling his entire head. My sweet baby what do I do here? We choose a box for you to rest in, the most beautiful we can find so that our son can come with us, whoever goes first, one that can be cremated with us as well. We have chosen cremation because we talked about this with our son and he had a great fear of being stuck forever in a coffin. So this is what we decide. Your wake will be Thursday and then you will be forever entered into your final resting place....in a box next to me until the day I die!  We leave after choosing everything and I cannot breathe again, as always the last several days! It feels as if not only has my heart and soul been taken but I am no longer who I was and I never will be again! NEVER AGAIN! What a great sadness and such a tremendous loss my darling Mathew, you will never know the extent of how your choice has completely and totally devastated our lives...you shall never know because only we will live forever with this agony only we can experience this hell! Only us!

Deepak Chopra - Life After Death - full show (short)

There has to be someway to find you. I cannot even imagine not ever seeing you again. I hope there's life after this one, I pray there is! I have become obsessed with the life after, I am obsessed with finding you. Your face haunts me every second of everyday. Your face that morning, unbearable! The grief in my soul, in our souls!

On Death

They have come for you a lot! How very sad I think that we have to sit by a tree and say to you what we would only like to say to you here on this earth and still with us! I wonder maybe if we would have talked more, maybe if they would have come more, maybe we all wouldn't be sitting by a dam tree and crying right now! What a beautiful thing for your sweet friends to do! In grieving the loss of your life they find it in their hearts to come and pay tribute to you and the place gifts for you! Where you took your last breath and where a beautiful life just ceased to exist. I really, really, really hate this tree! I think you know that Mathew Jacob, I really think you know! I feel you as I am sitting here beneath it. As I am praying for you and your safe passage to Heaven, I feel you with me. And I wonder, is it really fair to hate something that God made and is so beautiful, the tree didn't take your life, that was a choice that you made. I can only hope and pray God was with you the night you took your own life and that he held you and took you away to heaven, I will pray for this until I see your sweet face again, God I pray for that as well!


On Death

Then Almitra spoke, saying, We would ask now of death.

And he said:

You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heath of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

The Prophet
Kahlil Gibran

Fly, Fly Do Not Fear

Preparing For Mats Journey Home

  Home to the father and home to his family but different now, it's awful now, my baby will come home in a box! I cannot take another moment, another second, I feel as if I cannot breath! It feels as if my chest is crushing. Feels as if I at times may be ready to have a heart attack, my chest hurts and it hurts because of the severe stress that I am under or is it because of my broken heart! I am sure at this point, it is my broken heart! I continuously cry nonstop, relentlessly, it feels as if I may never stop.  I cry out to God and pray, where is my baby? Where father, please let him be with you! I repeat these same words over and over 1 million times or more in my mind as I still do as well as out loud! Just let him be with you father God! That is my only prayer that God has taken him home to be with him for all eternity!

  I am living a nightmare and the lights are on and the sun is out, God please let this all just be a dream and tell me that when i wake up tomorrow my baby will be here with me! My poor husband sits and stares and cries but honestly I cannot think right now nor do I feel as if I will ever feel anything other than this awfulness inside! It feels as if I have fallen into the deepest darkest hole imaginable. I cannot feel love, I cannot feel anything or anyone around me, its as if I am outside my own body in an awful dark and sad place, I do not want to be here! I never wanted to be here!
 No matter how much I try to divert my attention elsewhere I cannot! I cannot be without him, I will not go on without my son! I will not! I will not! I feel anger, rage, uncertainty, fear for my child and hopelessness inside myself! The loss is the greatest I have ever felt. It is unfair and I cannot understand!
 It's Saturday afternoon and we get the call from the funeral home, of course I run crying, leaving my poor husband yet again in his own grief to handle the appointment for arrangements. I want to run away from it, if I run far enough will I get so far that I don't have to be apart of it I think! Like a 2 yr old, I don't want to be apart of it! How do I stand beside the coffin of my beautiful son, the same son that that the night before, I kissed so lovingly on his forehead and said, I am so proud of you, you are going to drive, I am so happy! Life is about to take off for you, you have a job you are going to start, all will be good! This is the beginning of a new chapter in your life baby! We talked about life and what all this meant for him and all the responsibilities and things he would be able to do with a car and a job! I awake to find my same baby hanging in my yard! NO! NO! NO! It cannot be, it just can't!
 I have to go along with his father to pick out a casket, no......never! I cannot believe that of all the choices this young promising, handsome, outgoing and loved young man had, he chose death! DEATH OVER LIFE! With everything in this world to live for this is his future...none!
 So Monday it is, Monday we go  to see the funeral director to make all the decisions, I now know I am going to die as well! I CAN'T DO THIS!!!!! I sit at night under the tree where you ended your life and I cry and I scream and I cry, saying you have to come back to me, you have to! I won't accept this. You have changed our lives forever, your family, your sisters, your brothers for forever! I am slowly going crazy, crazy do you hear

!

Finding Mathew...The Day I Believe I May Have Died As Well!

Recalling this day is something I think no person alive should ever have to do, but for my own sanity,  I have to. 
It was so cold this morning, so very, very cold, foggy and just ugly!  So unusual for April. Nothing about this morning was right from the confusion I felt inside, to the feeling of uneasiness. It was just a mothers instinct that all was not right,  a feeling in your soul I cannot explain.  As his father rushed by me, to the telling me that he had found our son, to the sight of our son hanging from a tree it seemed to have lasted for years but it was only seconds. I remember running, I remember the scream that came from a place I cannot go to again, so deep from inside of me, a scream so blood wrenching,  I don't think I could ever produce that sound again and I hope I never will!  To see your baby boy hanging from a rope, dear God in heaven I thought, please let him be alive, please God, please, I beg of you, DO NOT LET HIM BE GONE FROM ME!  As I ran I cried and I screamed.  The look on my husbands face, the pain in his eyes, the mass confusion, and that feeling!  God awful gut wrenching feeling, that we are just to late.  But I have to try, I scream at my husband, and I scream at God! I have 911 on the phone and I am screaming, my son, he's hanging from our tree, please God get someone here quick, please, then I throw the phone out of frustration!  I yell at my husband please get him down,get him down, I can do this, I can bring him back, I'm a nurse, get him down!  My husband lifts him like a baby in his arms, his knees are on the ground and the rope is around his neck, we struggle to get it off but are unable. The rope is wrapped around a branch and the end has become lodged between the 2 main branches of the tree, his dad frees the rope and lays him on the ground at my feet. I start to give him CPR, crying I yell at him, breath dammit, breath, I know you can, I know I can do this, breath for me!  He is cold and white and lifeless, no response! NO RESPONSE! In my heart, I know he is gone but I cannot let him go. I stop after only several tries because I know I will not succeed, no matter what I do!  God says no more!  NO MORE!
I remember looking into my husbands face and it was then he knew and I knew there was nothing on this earth that would ever bring our baby back, no miracles here today!  I then picked him up and kissed him on his face, what seemed as if it was hundreds of times, holding him and rocking him , just as I had done 16 years before, only now I think just as a mother worries about her babies being cold and alone, he was so cold now and he had died all alone and scared, my tears and my heartache grew.  Not only had I lost my baby but the thought of him where he was, so cold and so alone ate me up to the point where I thought I couldn't bare it!  Inside I could feel myself dying right along with him...I will never again be who I was when I went to bed last night!  All I could think is I am holding my baby for the last time, I can never hold him again...ever! I will never hug him, touch him,  feel him kiss my cheek,  hear him say I love you,  I miss you, look what I did today,  hi mom,  I will never hear his beautiful voice again!  16 years passed before my very eyes...16 years in 10 minutes!  I hold him rocking him,comforting his lifeless body and praying for his soul!  I truly feel at this very moment I want to die as well!  My heart is broken and I cannot fix it!  A piece of me is gone!
The ambulances arrive and they take me from him and I beg not to take him from me, please don't take my baby, please!  I have to go away from him!  I cannot honestly say after this I recall anything that happened, nothing at all!  I am in total and absolute shock! 16 years and it's over how could this be? I refuse to believe you are gone!  It cannot be so and it will not be!  I will not face this, I will not!  I cannot!

Mathew Jacob Riley, From Your First Breath To Your Last, I Will Always Remember You!

Mathew  was born May 9, 1996 in Greenville, Pennsylvania at UPMC Horizon Hospital. 7lbs 5 oz and 20 inches long. He was born at 8:14 am. Several babies were born that morning only minutes apart. It was Thursday and a beautiful morning, the sun was shining and it was a perfect spring day. What a beautiful day God had given us for the birth of what would be our last baby. His name was chosen from the bible, Mathew, meaning child of God! Jacob, meaning may God protect! Perfect! As was he. Beautiful blue eyes and the blondest hair I had ever seen it was almost white! Perfect from head to toe. As dad and I looked at each other we cried. His birth was easy, no problems for either him nor me, we were in love!
God had so blessed us with this new life and we were to teach him and train him to know God and to know love. That we did! We taught him to love others, to love himself, to be kind and to appreciate life and all that we were blessed with. We taught him about life and we taught him about respecting himself and respecting others. We gave him instruction for 16 years hoping that what we had taught him would be enough to carry him through this life, to live well, to find a mate and to succeed along his path.
You give birth to a child and each day you look at this child and you think I know him so well! Now knowing what I know, I don't think that we know them half as well as we should. I don't think that we but into their lives as much as we should. It is so hard to parent in this century, so hard to know all the burdens that our children our carrying and all the demons they are facing. 
Mathew's 16 years were the best 16 years of our lives, the happiest 16 years of our lives! What innocence as I look into his eyes in this picture, what memories it brings to me, as well as a flood of tears. Great sorrow as well as great joy! Every night those 16 years fill my dreams as well as every second of everyday!
On April 20, 2013, his father and I woke up just as we had every other day for work. Unbeknownst to me what had occurred over the night. His father knowing how badly it would upset me, remained quite, hoping that the situation was just a false alarm. He did tell me that the police were there and there was a phone call but did not tell me details, just that he had left over the night and was not back yet.What he did not tell me was: the police had awoken my husband at 2 am letting him know that several of his friends had received a text message that was very disturbing showing a picture of our son with a make shift noose around his neck. The police produced no proof, my husband checked for our son, who was not in his room, then checked outside. The police then searched around finding nothing, spoke with my husband who explained that Mathew had snuck out on multiple occasions to go to friends without permission. Mathew was a wild one, very rebellious and very 16 year old boyish.  Mathew had several friends that were a terrible influence on him, dragging him down into the depths of hell. Friends you would never call a friend! Drugs and alcohol were their main focus and they encouraged Mat to do them with them as well. If there was trouble to get into with a friend it seemed as if Mat couldn't resist. We had our share of sleepless nights with our Mat and it wasn't uncommon for him to let himself out at all hours of the night, without permission and returning at times before we got up. We knew this just because parents know it! We knew EVERYTHING, we knew which kids to stear Mat from and atempted at our best but they of course were to persuasive for a 16 yr old.
At 5:00 am up as usual getting ready for work, I walk out to my car, walk back in, have to go out again because I forgot something, now I am getting mad because I remember I forgot something else I go out the 3rd time and as I am coming back in the house, my husband hands me the phone, and he's running past me with a look on his face that I will never forget! It's that look that people that are terrified get, the you've just seen a ghost look! His dad says call 911, I just found our son, I turned to look and there hanging in our tree in our back yard is my heart of hearts, my precious son and the love of my life! It was then and there I felt as if I myself had just died.