25 November 2002
My darling Kristian,
You will always be my little boy, the beautiful, happy and affectionate little boy that I raised for three years on my own after your birth and then again for a number of years following my divorce from your stepdad. You may have been 20-years-old, but you were still a young boy in a man's world, trying to fit in with your alien peer group and play big boys' games. Others preyed on your weaknesses and used you for their own ends.
Despite experiencing rejection from several father figures in your life, you were never resentful and always found it within your heart to love others and to overlook their shortcomings, because all you ever wanted in life was to be loved. You would always ask me for a cuddle whenever you came 'round, constantly seeking reassurance and acceptance. You craved love and would grab whatever bit you could, even if other people were only being nice to you because they had ulterior motives. There were others who deliberately tried to blame you for their own wrongdoings, others who had no conscience and could not admit the truth. They will receive karmic retribution. They know who they are.
I taught you compassion and forgiveness, but I now realise that in doing so, you were walked over and hurt by selfish, insensitive people. You gave your love and support to others, but when you then reached out for their support, they turned their backs on you. The only people who ever really cared about you, my beautiful son, were your family, your devoted girlfriend Melissa and her family and close friends Amanda and Richard. All you ever spoke about to me was how much you loved Melissa, how much you loved little Kayla and how you didn't want your daughter growing up thinking that she had a Bum for a father. She was your incentive to move forward with your life and leave behind the sinister world of drugs and all the unscrupulous activities that were a part of an evil community from which I had desperately tried to protect you.
You had a lot of "fairweather friends", who used and abused you and who only ever really cared about themselves. They turned you away in your hour of need and you died alone, cold and sad. They then turned up after your death, treating it as some macabre peepshow; people whom I had never even heard you speak about and people whom I had never seen before. They all wanted to view you at the chapel, not through respect, but out of morbid curiosity. I hope that in seeing you cold, hard and wax-like, with foul-smelling fluid seeping from the stitched incision around your neck from where the Post-Mortem tests had been performed, that they derived the satisfaction they were seeking.
You were always so protective of me, which was why you would only ever tell me the things you wanted me to know and the reason why I could never help you when you most needed help, because you didn't want me to worry. For those who knew that you were troubled and didn't extend caring arms, it's too late to say "Sorry". Sorry never changes the situation and never makes things right. Sorry is a cop out. To quote a line from Love Story, "Love means never having to say you're sorry".
All I keep thinking about is Halloween night, the night you decided to put an end to your pain and suffering. If only I'd known. If only you had called me. I was on my own too, handing out candy in a goodwill gesture to all the young Trick and Treaters who called 'round. I can't remember a previous Halloween night when so many cutely dressed children had knocked at my door. It seems so tragic that the one child who needed me most was the only one who didn't call. Would I have been able to save you, or was it simply your time to go? If I had rushed to your side before you took that fatal injection, would something else have happened? Would you have suffered a more violent death? Would you not have looked so peaceful in death?
I have replayed the moment that the policeman called over and over again. The first visit when I was informed that you had taken an overdose following an argument with your girlfriend Melissa, but were still alive. A message of hope and absolutely no indication that the medical staff were battling in vain to save your life. I was told that you were sat in the stairwell by Melissa's flat and that the next-door neighbour had walked past you later that night, but assuming that you were drunk, left you there and didn't think to call for an ambulance. When you were still there at 9am the following morning, Friday 1 November, the same neighbour realised that something was seriously wrong and then telephoned for an ambulance.
The policeman told me that two suicide notes and a syringe had been found rolled up in your jumper that had then been placed neatly outside the door to the flat. He told me that you were severely hypothermic, but that the ambulance staff had been working on you at the scene and that you had briefly regained consciousness. He told me that they were just giving your air, which was a good sign.
Then came the second visit, as Carsten, Lauren and I were awaiting the taxi to go and visit you in hospital. As the police car drew up outside, I knew. I knew that it was all over, that I would never see you alive again. As the policeman entered the house and uttered words along the lines of, "It's very bad news", I remember hearing someone hyperventilating and then sobbing hysterically, as though I were detached from the situation. The awful sounds were coming from me and yet I felt as though I were watching and listening to some heart wrenching drama where a mother had just been told that her son had died.
I remember acting on autopilot - making phone calls, handing your little sister Lauren to a neighbour, locking up the house and climbing into the police car with your brother, Carsten. There was no hurry. No need to rush to your beside lest you should take a turn for the worse before I arrived. It was already too late. I would never have the chance to tell you how much I loved you, to tell you that everything would be alright, or for you to have the same chance to tell me all the things that you had been afraid to tell me over the last few years of your life.
The doctor who had tried to save your life and the nurse who was in attendance told me that you were already in cardiac arrest when they arrived at the scene. They told me that they had managed to restart your heart, but that it stopped again in the ambulance. Your body temperature was only 22 degrees Celsius when you were found and despite warming you up slowly and working on you for two and a half hours, they could not save you.
There were formalities to follow and questions that the police needed answering and I found myself volunteering to be the one to identify your body. I also asked to see the two suicide notes that you had written - one to Milly and another that was addressed "To Whom It May Concern". I was not allowed to touch them because they had to be taken away for forensic tests. Neither was I allowed to take your clothes that were by the policeman's side in a white, opaque carrier bag. I was handed a ring that you were wearing, but later gave this to Milly because I thought that maybe it had been a gift from her.
I had never seen a dead body before. I never expected the first one I saw to be that of my child. I remember collapsing at the door to the room where you lay in the Accident and Emergency department at Princess Margaret Hospital. I couldn't believe that my little boy was dead. You looked as though you were asleep and I expected to see your chest rise and fall. I remember asking the nurse whether I was allowed to touch you before I held your baby soft hand, stroked your angelic face and ran my fingers through your perfectly groomed hair. I spoke to you through my sobs and kept asking you over and over again, "Why? Why Kristian, my darling little boy, why?"
When Anneliese managed to retrieve some of your belongings from a friend's flat, I remember the intense pain of removing each item, one by one, not just holding on to what I had left of you, but searching for the smallest clue about your recent life and perhaps a reason for your death. Even the smallest piece of paper was something that you had touched and something that I would not be able to bear to part with. In addition to a few items of clothing, there were a couple of old payslips from a temporary labouring job, a letter from Jobseekers supplying you with a list of possible apprenticeship courses, a pink squashy pig keyring, a small "Lover Boy" teddy that I returned to Milly and a toothbrush.
Each time that Grandad, Pauline, Anneliese and I visited you at the chapel, you looked a little more beautiful. You were dressed in a favourite red and navy Ben Sherman shirt and a pair of stone-coloured jeans. The day before your funeral you had more colour in your face, even though your face was make-up free. Your lips were still so soft and your face was perfect, even though your hands had turned pallid, waxy and wrinkled, almost as though you had taken a long bath and your body felt rigid and inhuman. You were surrounded by photos of your family and close friends and I had placed a cuddly, Christmas dog in your left hand and a Christmas decoration on your left arm. In your right hand was a photo of you holding Kayla on the night she was born, together with photo booth snaps of your sister, Anneliese and other friends. On your right shoulder was a china ornament of a pair of white doves and Melissa had placed one half of a "Forever and Always" pendant around your neck. On your little finger was a gold "Dad" ring from Kayla and a rosary was draped between your fingers.
Three weeks have passed in an emotional blur since your death and I still feel as though I am in a dreadful nightmare from which I will wake up. If only. Your funeral last Friday now seems like a dream. I can't believe it really happened. All I remember is a sea of strange faces without names, faces from the other world in which you lived, a world that I knew very little about and almost certainly a world about which Melissa also knew little about. So many unanswered questions that may remain unanswered, or that you will maybe address through our dreams.
The only way that I can deal with this is by knowing that you are no longer suffering, that you are at peace and that you will continue to guide those you love until we can be together again.
I feel your presence around me all the time. I can smell you and feel your love, but I would give anything to be able to give you one last cuddle. I know that Gran is looking after you and that maybe she was the one who chose to take you away from the life that you were leading. She rescued you and will keep you safe until we meet again. I'm sure that the two of you will have some really good laughs and reminisce about happier times.
I miss you and love you.
All my love always,
Mummy
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