‘Missing you so, so much’ Dad texts son who died in park
A heartbroken father, whose son died in a park, has shared the emotional messages he sent to his son’s phone telling him how much he is missed. Michael Bond’s world fell apart when police told him his 17-yearold son, Matthew Mackell, had passed away at Dunorlan Park in Tunbridge Wells.
After finding out just how much Matthew was struggling, Mr Bond is now urging others facing similar issues to get help and talk, as the UK marks Mental Health Awareness Week. The 48-year-old said: “Matthew liked school work and playing computer games. He was a very quiet young lad but always spoke his mind.
“I’d hear him in his room and think he’s happy laughing his head off. You just don’t think anything like that’s going to happen.”
In a text sent to Matthew’s phone after he died, Mr Bond said: “I’m missing you so much mate, keep on looking out the widow for you. Just want you back screaming at your TV to hear you laugh.
“People are sending so many nice messages about you and how you were such a nice person and friend to so many.
“I’m so very proud of you.” Mr Bond said sending the text messages helped him express how much he missed Matthew. It was only this week Mr Bond got his son’s belongings back, that he found out how low Matthew had been feeling. He added: “We found out he thought about taking his life in February. I looked at his phone logs to see he’d searched ‘how to take your own life’.
“We would have never expected this from him, ever. “He had so many friends at school. I wish he could have talked to me or one of them.” Matthew lived with his father, who is a single parent, and two brothers Christopher, 18, and Daniel, 13, at their home in Sandhurst Road.
The 17-year-old was a Year 12 pupil at Skinners’ Kent Academy. His love for maths meant he wanted to be an accountant when he left school.
Mr Bond added: “He’s mentioned accounting once or twice but he didn’t think anything would come of it.”
He said his son was starting to worry a two-week work placement in London would cancel. Mr Bond said the evening his son left home at 9.30pm on Wednesday, May 6 and Mr Bond told him to ‘Take care’ and said ‘bye.’
He added: “I kept texting him through the night but I didn’t know anything was wrong. I didn’t think anything of it until the police turned up at my door at 6.30am.
“When they told me what happened it was so painful. “Matthew called the police himself when he was at the park at 10.18pm.
“When the police called him back at about 10.40pm he picked up and said ‘I’m fine now don’t worry about me’.
“We presume it was after that call he passed away.
“I know he was worried about school work but I don’t think that’s all of it myself.
“He didn’t like the job he was in. He worked in Subway and he didn’t want to think that was his life.
“With what’s going on at the moment, everything shut down around him and he couldn’t see his friends, I think he just saw his life stopping.”
A growing display of messages and floral tributes to Matthew have been left at the park in Pembury Road.
Mr Bond said: “I went there exactly one week after it happened and it was very emotional for me out there on my own. I sat there until midnight, until
I knew that it was the time he had passed.”
A JustGiving page was set up by Michael’s neighbour Vikki Jump to help the family with funeral costs.
The page received thousands of pounds in donations just days after being set up. The total now stands at almost £10,000.