Forever Young: A mother's story of life after suicide

by Sharon Truesdale

  I noticed that Matthews’s mirror was turned to the wall and asked why.

  ‘It’s unlucky to have a mirror in the room with the coffin,’ the funeral director said.

  This puzzled me, and later, intrigued, I googled this, and read that some people believe the person’s soul can be trapped in the mirror. The thought haunted me, and I left the mirror facing the wall long after Matthew’s body had vacated his room. I was afraid to look into it in case I saw Matthew staring back at me.

  It’s hard for anyone to view a dead body, so I gave Natasha and Annie-Jean the choice. I asked them did they want to see Matthew; did they want to place anything in his coffin? ‘I’ve put in a photo of us all,’ I said. ‘Would you like to add anything?’

  Anne-Jean smiled. ‘I’ve written a poem about Matthew,’ she said. ‘I’d like to put that in. When she placed it in the coffin, and looked at her brother, a sense of calm came over her. She said she was glad she’d seen him.

  Natasha was uneasy about seeing her brother. I wondered why, until Annie-Jean took me to one side. ‘Mum, we saw him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yesterday. We saw him.’ She shuddered.

  I was horrified. ‘But I told you not to go outside,’ I said. I warned you.’

  She hung her head, and said, ‘We had to take Buster out.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’ I was confused. ‘There was no need. I’d already taken him out.’

  I encouraged Natasha to see her brother now that the undertakers had worked on him. It might take away the horrific image of the newly dead Matthew. She was still reluctant, and whilst Annie-Jean came in and out of the room with me, with ease, watching as I talked to my son and kissed him, it took Natasha a while to pluck up courage. She waited until her friends were there to support her and went in with them.

  The children had never attended a funeral before, so I explained what happens, and made sure that they were happy to be present – and both were.

  The doctor had prescribed some diazepam for me – I’d never taken it before – well, I had never needed to. It had a very strange effect on me. That evening, I sat in a corner, by myself, not sure whether to laugh or cry. The room went bleary, as if I was looking at it through a fog.

  In that state, I wasn’t, at first, aware of all that was going on in our full house. I knew that Shanice and Bronagh had both visited – they had begged to be allowed to, and I hadn’t the heart to stop them. But everyone else, it seemed, was against them. Matthew’s friends felt they had been the main cause of his problems and were not being especially friendly to them. And as rivals, they kept clear of each other.

  Once I got wind of this, I decided to intervene. Walking in to the second living room, I was distracted by the sight of four young men – Matthew’s closest friends, Gregory, Kenny, Ricky and Richard, sitting in a row wearing suits. Momentarily forgetting my troubles, I felt a bubble of laughter escape. ‘You guys look as if you’re auditioning for X-Factor,’ I said.

  ‘We wanted to show respect,’ muttered Gregory with an embarrassed smile.

  ‘No, it’s great,’ I said. ‘But there’s something I have to say to you.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s about Shanice and Bronagh.’

  They looked at each other with warily.

  ‘I understand how you feel about the girls,’ I said. ‘But right or wrong, Matthew loved both of them, and out of respect for Matthew – and for me – you have to make those girls feel welcome. Do you understand?’

  They nodded. I went around to all the other friend groups, saying the same to them. And to give them credit, they did make an effort.

  If the teenagers proved easy to handle, my mum proved harder. When she set eyes on Bronagh, it was all I could do to stop her approaching to give her a piece of her mind. ‘And I suppose that Shanice is here too,’ she said, in a voice that carried, alarmingly. When I nodded, and tried to explain why, she cut across me, and said, ‘I just don’t want them here. It’s not right.’

  Calling Karen and My aunt Vilma over, I explained the situation and said, ‘Could you try and distract my mum – keep her away from the girls?’

  Vilma proved a wonderful support, yet I’d only met her the previous year. I’d been searching for my cousins, Samuel and Neil on Facebook, and she responded. She lived an hour’s drive away but would come over whenever I needed her. We’d become close.

  They glanced at each other, nervously, and I said, ‘Mission impossible, I know! But could you do your best?’

  They were great at distracting Mum. They took her to the kitchen – or the main living room on the pretence that someone wanted to speak to her, in order to keep the peace, and avoid any ugly scenes. In truth, I think Mum blamed me for Matthew’s death. But she didn’t say as much. Not right then.

  Having read Matthew’s friends the riot act, I asked them would they like a drink to toast their late friend with? Because grateful though I was for their restrained behaviour, it seemed unnatural to see them drinking tea.

  I felt I could trust them not to disgrace themselves, and my confidence was not misplaced. They drank just one can each, disappearing into the garden to toast Matthew, and when, later, after everyone had gone, I went into the garden to clear up, I was astounded, not to say happy, that they had left it pristine. All the beer cans – and all the cigarette stubs had been tidily thrown away.

  I mentioned it to Natasha, saying how heartened I was that Matthew’s friends respected me so much, and she laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not you they respect,’ she said. ‘I mean, they do respect you, but they were tidying up for Matthew.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘You know what a clean freak Matthew was,’ she said. ‘He was always giving people grief. When we came back with fish and chips, he’d send everyone outside, because he could not bear the mess in his room.’

  That night, I was sleepless, yet again. And as I lay there, I went through, in my mind, all that had happened; and I wondered, yet again, what I could have done to make things different.

  The following morning, the house was, blessedly, free of visitors. Mum was there – sitting with Matthew, crying, when the doorbell rang. I answered. It was Maeve, my manager from work, and Pamela, a colleague. ‘We’ve come to pay our respects,’ they said, speaking quietly, saying how sorry they were. I offered them coffee, and they followed me out of the room. Mum shouted after us.

  ‘It’s all your fault Sharon,’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t let that Bronagh visit, my grandson would still be alive.’

  I stood still, shocked. But she hadn’t finished her tirade. ‘You knew Matthew was upset that night, and you didn’t check on him.’

  I sighed, and just took it. I understood her anger; the events of Matthew’s last night had clearly been playing on her mind. It made her antipathy towards Shanice and Bronagh so easy to understand. My colleague, though, was shocked. She put her arm round me. ‘Sharon don’t listen to her. That’s terrible. How can she say that? Everyone knows you did everything you could.’

  I did feel shaken. And her words had made me feel even more guilty than I did already.

  ‘You do know it’s not your fault,’ she added.

  ‘It’s ok,’ I said, switching on the kettle and setting out mugs. ‘She’s hurting so much. If it helps her to blame me, that’s ok. I can take it.’

  I lay in bed on the morning of the funeral, Monday 15 October, thinking about Matthew, and about the day ahead. How could I bear it? It was one thing getting through Thursday and Friday. I’d somehow stumbled through the weekend. But today? The day I had to bury my son? How in the world would I be able to cope with that?

  I took 2 diazepam to dull the ache of grief. It’s not something I had ever done before, but if the pills could help me stay strong – or at least help me hide my feelings from others – any sign of weakness, that, I reasoned, was okay.

  Preparing to dress in black added to the sombrenes
s of my mood. But that moment turned to panic, when I tried pulling up the zip of my black dress, and it wouldn’t close. ‘What will I do?’ I said, wishing I had gone shopping with James’s half-sister Leigh – who had taken Natasha to get her kitted out.

  ‘Stand still,’ said Kritti. ‘It’s just a caught thread.’ She pulled it out, and all was well. Annie-Jean came in looking pretty, in a black pinafore dress.

  ‘Is Natasha back yet?’ I asked.

  ‘Yup. Auntie Leigh drove in a few minutes ago. Natasha’s got black trousers and a jacket.’

  ‘So, she’s happy?’ Annie Jean nodded as I reached for my black coat. ‘That’s good.’

  When we arrived at Wray’s at 10.25am, just in time for the service, we were amazed to see a crowd of people standing outside. Seeing us, they stood back to allow us to walk in, to take our places at the front.

  We had wonderful speakers in Darren Pearson and Rodney Agnew from the Green Pastures Church. And we’d picked lovely wee songs. We had ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd,’ and ‘Amazing Grace.’ But the organist kept missing the notes. I found that bizarre. I raised my eyebrows at Terry.

  ‘The organist rang in sick,’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’ I assumed he was serious. ‘So, who is this?’

  He shrugged. ‘They picked him up from the shopping centre,’ he said.

  I laughed – or started to and turned it into a cough. But the more I held in my laughter, the more it escaped. I knew it would look odd, but I couldn’t stop. Influenced by diazepam, I wasn’t sure if I was laughing at each missed note, or the fact that, for a minute, I’d thought that Terry was telling me the truth.

  Annie Jean read her poem – a copy of the one she had placed in the coffin with Matthew. It was beautiful. She wrote it herself - a rhyming poem about Matthew’s different hair styles; about his favourite songs, and about the dance moves he taught her, or as she would say, she taught him.

  Some of Matthew’s friends had asked if they could carry the coffin, so it was arranged. And at the service’s end, as they carried Matthew down the aisle, we played, We Are Young, by Fun.

  It fitted so perfectly! I nodded my thanks to my sister, Maria, who had suggested the song was appropriate. Matthew had loved it. It became my kind of grief anthem. Hearing it always brings me close to Matthew.

  Following Matthew out of the church, I noticed that the crowd had grown considerably, and the bulk of those gathering to pay their respects were young. All these teenagers, girls and boys, had cared for Matthew, and they were all distraught. It was a reminder, as if I needed one, that Matthew was so much more than his problems. The life and soul of any party, he was loved. As we left for the graveyard, Mark struck up on the pipes, and the mournful sound made the moment more poignant still.

  I had thought that Matthew’s friends would soon tire – and had imagined that the coffin would be transferred into the hearse for the journey to the graveyard. But we ended up walking the whole mile, because so many of the 100 or so people walking behind me, wanted a turn carrying their friend home. I was overwhelmed by their support.

  I was hoping that the pastor would take this opportunity to open the door of the church to all these young people, by saying something meaningful, and comforting, but his message was all about the need to be saved. This didn’t feel appropriate.

  I go to church. I’m a believer, and I wondered if my son was going to heaven. He wasn’t, as far as I could see, ‘Saved,’ in the way the pastor was explaining, but he had been christened. He knew the stories from the bible and he believed them. I hoped that was enough. We kept saying, ‘Alleluia’, as a response to the pastor’s words, hoping, desperately, that he would soon stop talking, but he didn’t, not for ages.

  As I was pondering this, it was time to lower Matthew into the ground. Watching him below me, in the earth, I had a mad impulse to jump in right after him. It took all my willpower to stay, standing with the others. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I threw a white rose onto the coffin to signify the innocence of my young boy, who took his own life because he didn’t know what else to do.

  The young girls who attended, had other ideas. They each carried a single rainbow coloured rose – signifying the fun and colour Matthew created around himself. The sight of them all made me realise that my precious boy had united the community. It was a wonderful gesture, and the rose, has become thought of as ‘Matthew’s Rose.’

  I’d had enough, and wished that everyone would magically disappear, so that I could say goodbye to my son in peace. But I had to keep on my public face and shake hands with all the mourners who queued up to say, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  James’s family had come to the funeral, in spite of their misgivings. Wondering what James was feeling, burying his son, I remembered how, once, I had really loved him. And I felt sad that a relationship that had started so well could go so very badly wrong.

  8

  Shock

  After the funeral, when I closed my door, I was left on my own. Nobody visited. And although there were times, I needed to be alone, as the days and first week or two went by, I missed the support of neighbours, friends and family, and especially of the young people. It was hard. One minute the house was bursting at the seams, the next there was a hollow emptiness.

  Those were the darkest of dark days. When Natasha and Annie Jean had left for school, I’d go into Matthew’s room, and sit on his bed, in the place where he had died, where I had found him. That moment never left me. It didn’t matter what time I woke up, I would lie in bed, each day, until 7.21am – the time I had found Matthew. I was scared to get up sooner. That continued for years – which was mad, when the clocks had meanwhile changed several times over.

  It was torment, imagining his last moments. I’d hold my breath, counting the seconds; trying to work out how long it took him to die. I’d wonder what his last thought had been. Was he thinking of Shanice? Of the baby Bronagh was expecting? Did he stop to wonder, just for a second, how I would feel when I found him? Or was he in such pain that he didn’t think at all?

  I’d sit there in a state of numbness, sometimes remaining all day, not moving, until it was time to collect the girls from school and Daniel from day-care. Then I’d dry my tears, find the car keys, and drag myself away.

  There were lighter moments. My brother works at sea, but he had flown back for the funeral, returning to his ship soon afterwards. He’d taken a part in the proceedings, and had carried the coffin, but was paired up with someone considerably shorter than he was. When he came home to visit, during those first dark days, he was wearing a wrist support.

  ‘What have you done to yourself?’

  He laughed. ‘I hurt it at Matthew’s funeral.’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘I had to take all the weight to keep the coffin at the right angle,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise that the handles were purely ornamental, and didn’t the handle break off?’

  ‘What?’ I laughed.

  ‘So, there I was, trying to balance the coffin with one hand, and screw on the handle with the other.’

  Later, returning from his first visit to see Matthew at the cemetery, he said he’d taken flowers. ‘I thought, I’d have a joke with him, and I took him pink roses,’ he said. ‘But when I opened that sachet, they give you to feed the flowers with, it splashed all over my best Hugo Boss shirt.’ He roared with laughter. ‘So, I reckon your Matthew had the last laugh. Typical!’

  Great though such moments of humour were, they were few and far between. I hated leaving Matthew’s room, and found it almost impossible to visit the local shops, to see ordinary life going on. It seemed strange that whilst, for me, life was over, for others it went on as normal. That hurt. It made me want to scream.

  I’d wait until the fridge was empty, and only then force myself to Tesco. The outside world seemed so strange. Colours were brighter; noises were heightened, and, feeling numb, I imagined I was living in an alternative reality.

  I�
�d have thought I was invisible, except that people’s reaction to me was so pronounced. They’d see me, all right, but immediately turn their heads, and scuttle down a different aisle to avoid having to talk to me.

  One time, returning from Ballymena, I told Terry how I felt. ‘Why is everyone talking and laughing as if life was normal?’ I said. ‘How can they do that when my son has just died?’

  Terry pulled me into a hug. ‘Sharon,’ he said, stroking my long hair, ‘That was you in the week before Matthew died. When you were getting on with your normal life, somebody else’s child, or husband or wife had died. And they felt the same about your attitude.’

  I understood that, but it didn’t help. I still didn’t go out at all, except when it was absolutely necessary. I was too afraid that insensitive people would say the wrong thing, or that there would be a trigger; something to remind me of Matthew.

  There was that first time I heard an ambulance, and the siren frightened me to death; the first time I saw a hearse – the men in black bringing back that first, most terrible of days. There was that afternoon when I took Daniel to a play area and saw cable-ties securing padding on the trampoline. That one, bringing back the image of Matthew, grotesque in death, gave me such acute palpitations, that I slumped down on a bench, momentarily fighting for breath.

  One time, I was with Terry in Ballymena buying some petrol. When he went into the garage to pay, I noticed some lads sitting on the railings, their backs to me. One of them was the image of Matthew. He had the same haircut – shaved at the back and over his ears.

  My heart stopped. It was my son standing there. He was not dead after all, and he was carefree, just enjoying being with his friends. For a moment I was happy, lost in the illusion that this really was Matthew. I prayed that the lad would not look round, because when he did, I would have to acknowledge that he wasn’t Matthew. I’d have to go back to that place of pain.

  I wasn’t the only one suffering; we all were. Annie Jean has always been open natured, and happy to share her feelings. I’d been dropping her at school one day and noticed that she was upset. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.