I always stop at Mother's after Mass on Sunday mornings. Today my brother Matthew would have been 52 years old. He died in 1972 at the impossibly young age of 17. He left behind him boxes of poems that he wrote from 1968 until the day he died in 1972.

Mother mentioned the date and we both said "Matt's birthday". He used to say (when he was very young) that it was Lincoln's birthday too.

Mother and I enjoyed a happy remembering.

Matt was odd. There was no question of that. Even in grade school, he found it difficult to sit through a whole entire class at his desk. By the tome he reached high school he often would just get up and leave. He was never mouthy, or flip. He would just leave. Finally Les Vanderpan, the vice principal called Mother to school and told her that they just couldn't have that. Mother understood, but took Matt home. The following year he went back to try again. He told Mom he wanted join a commune. She said that he had to finish high school and gain 20 lbs.

He was impossibly thin and he experienced headaches that were excruciating. The day he died he was scheduled for more tests and brain scans to see if they could isolate the cause of the headaches. He told my sister Nora that this time they were going to find out what was wrong with him.

Matt hated sports and gym and all of that type of activity and actually petitioned the school system to make gym a non requirement as he felt that it was beneath his dignity. He lost, but he tried.

One of his teachers wrote a forward to a book of his poems that was published with money raised by his friends who put on a benefit concert for that purpost. The book is called Castle Mount. A teacher of his from high school, Larry Lashway wrote the forward. Here is a quote form that forward. "What can you say about a 17-year-old poet who dies? Nothing that the poet himself can't say better."

Here is one of Matt's poems. He seldom used capital letters always referring to himself with a small "i".

BELLADONNA

i'm in the wrong place
this isn't my ocean or my beach

now how can i get off it
without knowing how i got here

so many many people
telling me to smile

how's a smile goona help me anyway?
this is no laughing matter

someone had better stop me
before i get born again

(now is the time
to get the church bells tolling)

if we stay here any longer
god may spear us like fish

but the thought doesn't frighten me
because i haven't enough mind left

to feel fear with...
but at least i warned YOU

anyway you look at it
it has to end soon

before the cosmic shadow
kicks us out of this alley

think about that
while i hold my breath and turn blue

i'm in the wrong place
this isn't my ocean or my beach

Mom and I had the nicest hour sharing memories about our Matt. A smiling happy remembering. He was a beautiful child blond, fair and big eyed. And he dove into life full of wonder and excitement. I miss you Matt but as the priest said at your funeral. Maybe God took you home so young because you would not have survived in the world outside outside of your safe nest of home.



Mary


Mary