Stories of Lost Children
Matthew - 4/19/85-3/19/04
by MaryAnn Taylor, Lisle, NY, U.S.A.
March 12, 2004 Friday "Bye Mom, I'm going to school." "Oh, Matt before you go did you bring out your breakfast dishes from your room?" "Ah..no Mom, I'll do it later." "Are you coming home tonight, Matt?" "No Mom, I'm going out with Dustin and Codey and I'll probably stay at Dad's house. I have to work tomorrow, so I'll see you after work." "Oh, Matt this came in the mail for you, it's from college. You have to register for your Sophomore year next week." "Thanks Mom, I love you." "I love you too, Matt, drive safely and I'll see you after you are done with work tomorrow." These are the last words I ever spoke to my son. On Saturday morning, I left the house at 6:15am to help with a pancake breakfast at church. At 6:40am, my son, coming home with his friends from Turningstone Casino and on his way to work, fell asleep at the wheel on the highway, not too far from home. His car flipped over upside down into a ditch with 2 feet of runoff in it. His friends did not have a scratch. Nor did he..not a cut, bruise, or broken bone. He couldn't get his seat belt off as he was upside down and disoriented. A man and his son were traveling behind him. They ran to the car and with help from Matt's friends were able to get him out of the water. He was under water for approximately 1 minute. Another witness called an ambulance. Matt was up and talking...worried about his friends and his car. He talked all the way to the hospital. A sheriff called his father and told him to bring warm clothes for Matt as he would need them when he went home that morning.
8:40am - One of my daughters came to the church and told me Matt was in the hospital. 9am - I walked into the hospital, everyone there - grandmothers, grandfather, Matt's father and stepmother were crying. I went into the room and saw him hooked up to life support. They said that when he got to the hospital, he was having a lot of trouble breathing. They sedated him and put tubes down his throat to help him breathe. I knew he could hear me - we all talked to him. They said that this was SOP and he would be fine. A couple hours later, they took him to ICU. He struggled all night - moving, trying to get the tubes out, breathing erratically. On Sunday, the doctor said that in order to keep him from moving, they had to give him a drug to paralyze him. On Sunday afternoon, a full 30 hours after he had been admitted, they decided they had better start him on antibiodics. This was after the man who helped rescue him came in an told them that the water he was in was filthy and smelled like sewage. We spent our 2nd night on the floor of the ICU. Monday - A blur - someone told us to call an infectious disease doctor. 3rd night spend there. Tuesday - We were told that he had four different infections in his lungs from the water-strep, staph?? I can't remember the other two. A blur of family and friends. They kept telling us that he would be up soon and talking, maybe by the morning. Nights spent talking to him, touching him - with the whir of the machines in the background. Wednesday - I am talking to him and a tear comes from his eye and down his face. I know he can hear me and he is scared. I feel so helpless. Thursday - The doctor say he is going to make it. He might be up tomorrow and everything looks good. Thursday night - 10pm - ICU nurse is running around-things look bad, very bad. The nurse calls the doctor and finally an infectious disease doctor is coming in the morning.
11pm - He is going into septic shock. I know my baby is not doing good. I pray for sometime in the ICU waiting room-cry, pray, beg, plead. 12:05pm - I know he is gone, but they keep working on him though the night. 4am - The nurse tells us to get our families here. 5am - We all form a prayer cirlce and pray until 8am. 8am - The doctor tells me and Matt's father to come into the room. For three hours the doctors form a line and had bag him on the repirator. His father and I yell for him to keep fighting, at some point I alomost pass out but don't want to leave. I see a Chaplain at the door--What is she doing here? Finally, after 3 hours, his vitals come back. I am so happy to see those blips on that machine, pulse, respirator, heartbeat, all good. Yeah! We have done it! Heis going to be fine. The doctor calls us out of the room. Matt's lungs are destroyed. There is a one in a million chance that he will live, but on a repirator and in a wheelchair, paralyzed for the rest of his life. We have a half hour to make a decision. I cry and plead to the doctors "Please, he's my beautiful boy, he's only 18, he nvever drank or smoked or gave us any trouble. He's loving, kind, funny, honest, intelligent-He's just becoming a wonderful man. Please save him. He's going to be a doctor. He's a sophomore at college. Please, he has so much to live for." I am on the floor begging, pleading, crying. They are crying. We go tell his brothers and sisters and relatives to go say goodbye. Someone calls our pastor. His father and I go in to tell him how proud we are of him, how much we love him, how much we will miss him. We tell him to go to God. He is gone. The pastor comes and we go in for the last time. He is beautiful. He is not dead. I don't want to let go of him. I hold him and kiss him and touch his hair. I don't want to leave him there. I want him back. They pull me away. I am lost in a black haze. Matthew has told us that he wanted to donate his organs when he died. We are told his organs are too damaged. He can only donate his eyes and skin tissue. This is not happening. Relatives make the arrangements. I go home to retrieve my smallest child (6). I can't eat, sleep, I don't believe he is gone. His french toast that I made him for breakfast that last morning still sits on the table in his room. I leave it there. I can't bear to take it out. My son, my beautiful baby, my brilliant man is gone. The pain, sorrow, grief is an unbearable, terrrible ache. I want to die, but I must live for my other children. I put on his tornado light, lay in his bed with his things and watch the light on the ceiling all night. This is a dream. Tuesday, 3/23 - Matthew's funeral-hundreds of people - our church has a luncheon-all a blur of tears and sorrow.
My heart aches for him and the fact that I will never hear him, touch him, feel him, kiss him, love him, hear his laugh until I die. I will never see him graduate from college, get married, be a doctor, take care of his little sister or have good times with his other sisters and brother. I will never see him ride his bike to Arizona or hear his contagious belly laugh at 1 in the morning ever again. A river of tears will always be my burden. Why Matt? Why didn't you stop for coffee, why didn't you unroll the windows? This death seems so senseless. If there wasn't water in the ditch you would be alive. If they have given you antibiodics sooner, you would still be alive. If you decided not to go and to stay home you would still be alive. Were you on your way home because I told you that there was no excuse for not going to work? Am I responsble? Do you see me in heaven? Please forgive me for any thing I have ever done to hurt you or make you feel bad. I'm so sorry my son for all the tomorrows I will never have with you. It will his 19th birthday on April 19th. I wrote that a couple weeks ago. I put this poem in the papter for his birthday: A part of me is gone forever
Laughter, joy and all life's pleasure
Seems so far away, but still
Jesus stands on Calvary Hill
Do I understand God's ways?
His shortening of Matthew's days?
I can't see where his death has done any good for anyone
We cry and wail and weep and moan
because he won't be coming home
But then some light God sheds on me
to show Matt's where he ought to be. Until we embrace again Matt, I love you forever. Mom
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