Matilda had been trying to deal with the loss of her daughter Stacy by putting all her energy into the military. For 5 years she had gone on missions abroad and did not visit Stacy’s grave once. But when she finally got herself to visit again, she started noticing that there was often an unknown young boy standing at the grave.
Matilda was shocked when she learned who he was and why he was there so often…
It had been weeks but finally, Matilda had worked up the courage to approach her daughter's grave again and confront the young boy who had been showing up in front of it every couple of days. She needed to know who he was and what he was doing by the grave of her daughter..
he boy saw Matilda, it was obvious he recognized her just as much as she did him; not at all. Only after he introduced himself did a light come on in Matilda's head and when he started to explain himself, there was no doubt left in her mind.When t
Matilda collapsed onto her knees with tears streaming down her face. All she wanted to do was hug this now very confused-looking young boy…
But how had Matilda ended up in this situation? Who was the young boy and what was he doing at the grave of Matilda’s daughter?
Matilda still had a hard time believing that her daughter was no longer with her. It was something she had ample time to prepare for, but that did not make it any less difficult. It's time for her to get over it and move on with her life. But that's not so easy though.
The day Matilda’s daughter Stacy was born, the doctors had already painted a very bleak picture for her. But Stacy was a fighter and for a long time she was beating all the odds. Her doctors were always baffled by how strong she was. They often said that she was one of the strongest people they had treated.
Every year that Matilda and her husband Joshua had with their precious but unfortunate daughter was a blessing. They treated it as such making sure they enjoyed every moment and making Stacy’s life as normal as possible. They enjoyed every moment with her.
But keeping their lives as normal as possible, also meant that Matilda would have to miss some parts of Stacy's first and only years as she was actually employed as a corporal with the military. That hurt her a lot. But she had no other choice; money had to come in, too.
Seeing her family situation, the military had made special arrangements that she would not have to go overseas for a mission in the foreseeable future, but she was still expected to contribute her tactical expertise from a base in the US. That base was more than a 10-hour drive from her home.
Sometimes this meant she would be away from home for almost a week. And every second hurt the poor woman but she knew that if she walked away from her job now, in the future she would neither have employment nor a daughter.
So she tried to suck it up and when the health of her daughter eventually went downhill to a point where the writing was on the wall, she decided to take up all her vacation time and then some. In total, that was more than 3 months of days off.
The military was of course not happy with this but allowed it. By this point, Stacy was 5 years old and had even been able to occasionally go to school. She had been fighting for so long and Matilda could not have been prouder. But it was good now.
The ceremony that followed was beautiful but still very intimate. Only family was present and 1 doctor, who worked with Stacy from the moment she was born and really felt like he built up a bond with her. He always told Mathilde that he would be with her until the end, he kept his word.
Matilda and Joshua would end up dealing very differently with the loss of their daughter. While Joshua was able to embrace the emotions, Matilda was looking for any way to distract herself from them. And the military would bring a good solution for this.
Matilda started going on long mission after long mission, being out of the country for months on end and barely even thinking about home. But of course, this also had a big effect on her relationship with Joshua. Their relationship went downhill over time.
He tried to stand by Matilda for as long as he possibly could. But with her giving him no sign that there would come a point where she would be home more often. He decided that enough was enough and left her. For Matilda it was a big blow, she really couldn't take this anymore.
But for a long time Matilda kept pushing every emotion away. But at some point they will catch up with you and for Matilda, this turned out to be about 5 years after Stacy had passed. Even though she felt that things were not going well for her, she did not expect to have such a severe emotional breakdown.
Joshua had left her about 3 years ago and seeing as she was almost never home anymore, she wanted to sell her house and buy something smaller and cheaper. But setting foot in the house again just brought back so many memories.
Matilda felt horrible about how she had handled her emotions in the situation and even worse about the fact that in 5 years, she had not visited Stacy’s grave once. What kind of mother was she? She felt very guilty, she wishes she could turn back the time.
She wanted to go and visit her daughter right away, but felt so guilty she could not possibly bring herself to stand at the foot of her daughter's grave. She just did not feel worthy. She had something or someone left who could lift her over this proverbial threshold.
But this was not for a lack of trying. Nearly every day Matilda drove past the graveyard or even walked alongside the edge, just being too embarrassed to approach. All she did was stare at her daughter's headstone for a few seconds. But in these moments, she did notice something else...
At first, she had thought that he probably came with his parents or grandparents to visit and pay respect to family members. But the more she saw him, the more she noticed that there was never anybody explicitly with him. The graveyard was often relatively busy and she was seeing a lot of the same people every couple of days. And among these people was a young boy.
And then there was something else. It was starting to look like the boy was not just there to visit any grave. He always seemed to stand by the same one. And while this in itself was of course not strange, the particular grave was.
The young boy that Matilda was sure she had never seen or heard about before was seemingly always standing at the grave of her daughter Stacy! Matilda just could not understand what he was doing there. So she decides to go up to him to ask what he is doing at her daughter's grave.
But once the boy saw that Matilda was approaching him, he started to run away as fast as he could. Matilda yelled after him and asked who he is. But it was no use. The young one ran far too fast and within seconds he had already disappeared from view.
She considered chasing after him, but how would it look if a grown woman was chasing a little boy over a graveyard, yelling and screaming at him. There was not much she could do. Besides, her condition is not as it used to be when she used to exercise often. She would never manage to catch up with the boy.
But approaching the boy had also unconsciously brought her closer to the grave of her daughter than she had been for the past 5 years. Matilda suddenly felt a wave of nervousness come over her. And she had a feeling she had never felt before in her life. Like she wasn't alone...
Stacy was just lying right there. Only a few meters away from her was her daughter's final resting place. Matilda took a very deep breath. She knew she had to take those final steps. Those steps were some of the hardest of her life. But she managed to do it.
Tears came to her eyes when she was finally face to face with Stacy's headstone again and saw her name written on it in beautiful letters. It was a classic gravestone with at the bottom also written who will remember her most.
Matilda’s own name was there, alongside her ex-husband Joshua and their parents. But then Mathilda saw it. There was another name written on the headstone alongside her own. A name she did not recognize. She blinked her eyes twice, to make sure she was not mistaken.
The name written on the tombstone was Jimmy. Who could this possibly be? She knew that this was not on the stone the last time she saw it. When Stacy was buried. How could another name be added on here without her knowing? She was flabbergasted..
Matilda started to think. Could the young boy possibly have something to do with this? Was his name maybe Jimmy? But how was she going to figure this out? You can’t just go and search a young boy knowing only his first name?
da was going to have to encounter him again and the only place she knew that this could be a possibility was at the graveyard. Maybe he would show up at the grave again. She had few other options. After all, she didn't have the name or a phone number.Matil
So matilda paid her respect to Stacy and left for now. But she was going to return every day around the same time to see if she could see the young boy again. Even though she has to go to the cemetery every day for weeks, she must and will meet the boy.
It took about a week of Matilda driving past the graveyard before she finally saw him again. He looked a bit worried, maybe fearing that Matilda was going to come after him again. But when he saw Mathilda looking at her, he immediately turned his head.
She parked the car and quite tried to get closer to the boy without him noticing. But the boy suddenly turned around when Matilda was still quite a while away and he set in a sprint again. Mathilde was prepared for this.
This time Matilda managed to stop him. Instead of chasing him, all she did was shout the name Jimmy and the moment the boy heard it he stopped in his tracks and turned around. His facial expression spoke volumes. He seemed very surprised.
Matilda slowly approached the boy. She did not want to scare him away again as she had so many questions that only he could answer, at least she hoped so. But the very first question was from Jimmy for Matilda. In a slightly shaky voice he said:
“How do you know my name?”. Matilda explained that she had read the name on the gravestone of Stacy and that it was not there when she left it last time. In addition, she said that she had not been there for a while, so she did not know how long the name had been on it.
Then Matilda went on to explain that she was actually Stacy’s mother and the look of wonder on Jimmy’s face went even bigger. Then he said half shouting, half crying “That is not possible!”. Mathilda didn't know how to react, but the boy kept shouting.
“Stacy is my sister and you are not my mother! You're lying, you're fooling me" the boy screams. Matilda could not believe what she was hearing but before she could question the boy, she heard a familiar voice behind her.
“I think I have some explaining to do…”. Matilda could not believe it. It took a second to set in but there was no doubt in her mind who this was. She turned around. “Joshua?” Matilda thinks she's dreaming, but she's not.
Matilda’s ex-husband Joshua was standing behind her. In all those years he had hardly changed at all, he had only grown a little fatter. Now Matilda had even more questions, but a lot of them were immediately answered when Jimmy shouted, “Dad!”.