They received the telephone call, that would change and shatter their lives forever. Isobel wanted to go with Robert and Tom to go identify the body. Robert told her she didn't have to go, but she had insisted.
She entered the cold grey hospital room, cautiously. Briefly thinking of his wife and his new born child, in this very building, just a floor above. Cora was with her now. Isobel wouldn't have had the strength to break the news to her, and who better than her own mother?
Isobel walked into the room, slowly still, till she approached the table, where he lay.
It would have looked like he was sleeping, if it hadn't been for the bruising of the neck. His neck had been broken, she recalled, the initial cause of death. But that didn't show. HIs head was lying straight, that meant that they had to have rebroken it. She was filled with anger at the violation of her son's body.
The sheet covered him, wasn't laying flat. It slanted slightly, where his chest had been crushed, caved in. There was no way to correct that. The casket would have to be closed. His sternum had been crushed, the aorta would have ruptured and he would have died instantly.
This wasn't her son. It couldn't be. Her Matthew. Just the vessel for his soul. What was the soul? Did his still linger?
She couldn't take his hand, to tell him it was ok. She didn't want to feel the coldness. She wanted to remember the warmth. Instead she touched his hair. But it was too much for her.
Tom rushed in, catching her, just barley. As he lowered her to the ground, she let out the most animalistic sound he had ever heard to come out of a person.
"My son. My boy. My only...child." She wailed.
Six Months Later
As she sat at the dinner table, watching all the young people smiling and laughing, she couldn't help but feel that something was missing. No, not something, someone. There was one who would never smile and laugh again.
One person is missing and the whole world is empty. Parents are not supposed to bury their children. He's supposed to bury me.
Time does NOT heal this wound. We simply learn coping mechanisms to carry the weight of the grief. I also have people that ignore the topic of my son. It's so hard. My focus has been on surrounding myself with the people that will. It's what I need to continue on. They existed. They lived and died. They are loved…even still.
I miss Matthew's beautiful smile and chuckle, his good nature, and his big heart. I miss how we used to have deep conversations about life. I'm sad that he isn't in his son's life. There is no rhyme or reason or understanding for why these things happen. There is no peace because a mother can spend eons of time wondering about the truth of religious beliefs, the resting place of souls. Does the soul exist in another realm, will you see them again, do they know their life meant something, that they are missed and loved. There is no one to talk to about it because those who haven't experienced losing a child, their only child, they can't fathom it and they are uncomfortable trying to do so, they can't go there, of course they can't. Those that have experienced it, well, sometimes it hurts to share our pain.
Branson's words make it just a bit bearable. But in never will be. She will never be a mother again, and being a grandmother wasn't the same. He looked too much like Matthew. She thought it would help to see George but it hadn't. She wouldn't be a good grandmother without him.
When Lord Merton came into her life, it took some time but she opened her heart, to a new kind of love. That's what Matthew would have wanted. Matthew was at peace. He was nowhere, only a memory.
Having Matthew later in life, couldn't have been more of a blessing as it was now. She would not live much longer, ten, fifteen more years perhaps, even that seemed too long. In that time she would make the most of what she had left. Dickie's unwavering love made it bearable, for at least a while. The heart to expand to accommodate people, that make one's life richer. And Matthew had done just that. And so much more.