Brian Fields

After I got home from Aunt Maria’s on Sunday, I was bored most of the day. I didn’t want to do much of anything, but it was probably because not much of anything was going on. Around 6:30 Joe called me and asked if I wanted to go see “I Robot” with him. I didn’t really want to go out, but hey, free movie…. coupled with the fact that Joe would probably give me greif if I didn’t go.

The movie was pretty good. Obviously it was like a CG overload. Consider it the cross between the “The New Renaissance” from “the Animatrix” and the environment of “Minority Report” and you’ve got the general feel of it.

Yesterday (monday) was all boring and then some. Finally I started watching a couple of Joe’s DVDs that I hadn’t seen. Other than that, I don’t think I accomplished too much more.

I’m at school right now, my Premeire class starts in about 15 minutes. I don’t want to go but I really shouldn’t miss it. I “forgot” to do my homework, but I have a fairly good reason. We are supposed to make music videos, but the idea I had for mine last week doesn’t seem like I could do it easily. So I’ve kinda scrapped the idea and I’m working on some new idea… that is nothing more than thinking “I need a new idea”. Note to self: stick to CG because filming stuff is a hassle even before you get to filming it.

So I better get out of here before I’m late for class.

See ya.

Last night I had to house sit for my Aunt Maria one more time. She went to visit uncle Brett then bring him home because his time with the reserves is done for now. Aunt Maria thought it would be a good idea to invite Drew and Sean (Matt’s brothers, my cousins) over to hang out for the night. I got off work yesterday at 4, got a shower and relaxed for a few minutes then came over here. They got here about 15 or 20 minutes after I did.

We had a blast. Sean and I played a little bit of co-operative Halo, but we ended up killing each other more than anything. Then we watched Gladiator, woofed down a bunch of junk food and made a pizza. After that we decided we wanted to go to blockbuster and rent a video game or something and Drew wanted some ice cream. When we got to blockbuster we decided that we really didn’t see anything we liked and just decided to play a bunch of Super Smash Brothers, so Drew got his ice crem across the street at Krogers and we went back to Aunt Maria’s. We played that until about 2 or so, then we started watchin Goodfellas. Sean fell asleep in about 20 minutes and Drew went to sleep around quarter till for or so.

We all pretty much woke up around 9:30-10ish. Sean had to leave to go learn to drive and Drew left then too, just because he felt like crap from all the junk food we had.

We all agreed that we definately need to hang out again and wondered why we hadn’t really done it much.

So it’s about noon now and I’m just waiting for Aunt Maria and Uncle Brett to get back now. Uncle Mike said that they should probably be back around mid afternoon or so, so I’ll probably just play some video games and watch some TV or something.

See ya.

Last week was something I’d never expect. I was supposed to be house sitting for Aunt Maria from Tuesday until late Thursday. I got to her house around 1, and mostly just played around on my laptop for a while. Later on, I went to Aunt Maureen’s to help her with her computer. I got back, settled down for a bit. For some reason I was exhausted and a little bored. I gave Joe a call to see if he was going to come over because he had said he might, but he was on his way back from Louisville from a Van Halen concert. So I went to bed shortly before midnight.

I woke up Wednesday morning around 8 and started making myself some oatmeal when the doorbell rang. At first I ignored it because it wasn’t my house and I didn’t care to BS with anyone stopping by for some strange reason. After about a minute, it rang again, so I figured I should answer it.

When I opened the door, my dad was standing there. This was pretty strange because at 8AM he should be at work. He was off Monday for the July 4th holiday observance, but he had been at work Tuesday, so I couldn’t think of any reason he wouldn’t be at work on Wednesday. At first I figured he just stopped by to check on me or something, but once he came inside I knew something was wrong. As we passed the couch he said “You wanna sit down?” He said it in the voice that he normally uses when I’m in trouble or when he lectures me, but my first thought was that something had happened to Joe. I know that he has been exhausted lately from all the work, and could only imagine that the 3 or 4 hour drive back to Franklin took it’s toll on him and he didn’t make it back.

“Your cousin Matt is dead. He shot himself last night. I’m sorry.”

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My initial reaction was to be relieved that Joe was okay. But less than a second later his words started to sink in. I immediately thought of one of the times that Matt and I (along with Joe and Matt’s brother Drew) spent the night at my Aunt Maureen’s. Naturally, I didn’t believe it. As my dad wiped the tears from his eyes he asked me if I was okay. “Yeah” I said. After all, it really hadn’t hit me. My dad told me that most of the family was going to my Grandma and Grandpa’s to be together and then left to go there.

I ate my oatmeal all while more memories of Matt flashed through my head.

Matt’s visitation was held Friday night and the Funeral was Saturday morning. It wasn’t until I saw Matt at the visitation that it really sunk in.

Thursday night we were all relieved to hear that it was found that the shooting was accidental. I don’t know the exact details of how things unfolded so I won’t talk about it, but at first everyone was torn apart to think that he may have purposely shot himself. I knew that Matt may have had some problems, but I also knew that he would never do that.

The entire family pulled together to help my Uncle Mike (Matt’s Father) make funeral arrangements. As most of the family said, Matt would be so happy and proud to see the family come together.

I think Grandpa said it best when he said the following: “We’ll make it through this. We believe in the lord and believe in each other and we’ll make it through this.” and later: “This family has been so fortunate that nothing bad has ever really happened to them that we have to thank the lord the blessings he has given us.”

Matt, know that you were always loved and that you will be dearly missed. May you rest in peace. We love you!

Matthew M. Fields- January 25, 1982 – July 7, 2004