Friday, September 04, 2009

A Mother's Anguish


But the phone call that Thursday morning wasn't from Matt. It was about him. When the man on the other end of the line announced who he was, an emergency-room doctor from Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, I went numb. I don't remember what he said, or what I did next. I'm not sure whether it was the ringing phone or my subsequent gasp that startled the still-sleeping Dennis. Whatever it was that woke him, Dennis took the phone from me and then, after a seemingly endless silence, made a noise—a sort of helpless and mournful groan—that I'd never heard before and haven't heard since. Coming as it did from my husband, a man whose reserved manner is as typically masculine and Western as his Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots, the moan confirmed my worst fears.

Matt had been attacked. He had sustained injuries to his head that were so critical, his chances for survival were nearly impossible.- excerpted from The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed (Hudson River Press) Judy Shepard

No comments: