Jeannie Out of the Bottle - Barbara Eden [96]
In 2000, though, hope flared again when he got clean and became engaged to a wonderful girl, Leanna Green. He and Leanna moved into an apartment in Covina together, and my son’s life seemed to be back on track again. To be honest, “again” didn’t really enter into it, because since the age of ten the only track Matthew had been on was one utterly dominated by drugs.
Recently he had been devoting himself to bodybuilding. He was six foot four and he’d bulked up to 280 pounds, determined to win the Mr. Muscle competition in Los Angeles that July. Better still, he had a small part as an inmate in an upcoming prison thriller, Con Games. He was so proud that he had gotten the job based on his own talent and that he had never told anybody who his parents were.
He and I were closer than ever, and he visited me and Jon several times a week. One day he told me, “Life is great, Mom. I can’t believe I spent so many years not being awake to how green the trees are.”
Initially I was almost afraid to allow myself to experience even a modicum of joy and optimism about Matthew’s future. Realizing that my feelings wouldn’t influence the outcome of his struggle with drugs, either positively or negatively, I decided to throw caution to the wind and flung myself into preparations for my son’s wedding. I even caught myself thinking of names for my grandchildren.
The call came at 3:00 AM on June 26, 2001. For the past fourteen years, whenever my telephone rang, I had consistently feared the worst: news that Matthew was injured or dead. During that time I lived on a precipice of fear, just waiting for the inevitable to happen, yet always escaping the final drop.
But on the morning of June 26, all my worst fears came true. Matthew was dead.
I heard the news from Michael’s cousin. Although Matthew always carried a note in his pocket with my name and phone number on it, the police didn’t want to call me directly and tell me what had happened. I later found out that the authorities always call a close relative to break the news of a child’s death to that child’s parent.
He’d been found at nine the previous evening, his body slumped over the steering wheel of his truck at a Chevron gas station in Monrovia, near the 210 freeway. He was alone, and there was no evidence of trauma or foul play.
The press reported that twenty-five paramedics were called to the scene. It didn’t matter how many there were; it was too late. Beside Matthew’s body, they found a syringe as well as vials of anabolic steroids; he’d been injecting himself to bulk up for the bodybuilding contest. Blood tests revealed that he had shot up with a dose of unusually pure heroin, which had proved too much for his heart.
Matthew was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. He was just thirty-five years old.
Sometimes I come across a photograph of myself at Matthew’s funeral, looking drawn, thin, and tired beyond belief. When I was a child and then a teenager and upset about something, my mother would always say, “Remember, Barbara, no one has died! That’s the only thing that’s important. No one has died. Put it into perspective.”
Now Matthew—young, vital, and loving—had died, and that was the only thing that was important. I wanted to die myself, but I remembered what Matthew had once said about me on a TV show: My mother is one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. Once upon a time, maybe, but not now, not now that he had gone. But I remembered what he’d said, and I knew it would be disrespectful to Matthew if I couldn’t be strong.
In the days, weeks, months, and years since the funeral, I have put one foot in front of the other and carried on as best as I could. In the intervening years, I’ve often been asked how anyone can cope with losing a child, and the answer is that you don’t. You can’t. There’s no way. You don’t know how you will live through it, how you can survive. But you