The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
A mother’s grief: ‘You’re never there. There’s always work to be done.’
OTTAWA – Each day, Lynne Laramée does her best to honour the legacy left behind by her son, Matthew Koeck, which she distills into three simple, but sometimes elusive words: love, laughter and kindness.
Some days are more difficult than others. Last Friday, Dec. 6, marking the first anniversary of Matthew’s death from an overdose from a counterfeit Xanax pill laced with fentanyl, was shaping up to be one of the hardest.
The 20-year-old had come home at around 11 o’clock the night before, on Dec. 5, 2018, after working two jobs; a fulltime one with his father during the day and a part-time one at La Zone Chawarma in Aylmer, not far from their home. As he sat on her bed and told her about his day, Lynne thought Matthew seemed a bit anxious, but, if something was bothering him, he didn’t want to talk about it. He was tired. “I love you, Mom,” he said, and then he went bed.
She found him shortly after seven o’clock the next morning, laying on his bed, his lips and fingernails blue, mucous spilling from his mouth.
“I seriously thought I was having a bad dream,” Lynne recalls.
She called 911, then administered CPR.
“That’s when I realized he was gone. The police and firefighters came, and I just sat on the couch thinking, ‘This can’t be happening.’ That’s your worst, worst fear as a parent.”
The police found no drugs in Matthew’s room other than the Xanax he took.
“The Xanax was his soft spot. He would escape by taking that and not feeling anything and just being numb, but that would make him more anxious.”
Matthew, she adds, had been in recovery for four months, so his tolerance to substances was much lower than it would have been if had he still been using regularly.
“Plus I don’t think he knew he was taking fentanyl. So he took the pill, and that was it.”
She wishes she had known more about recovery then. She wishes she had reached out to other parents. “But, when you’re in chaos, when you go through that, you’re really parenting from a place of fear, and you’re not absorbing everything that’s going on around you.”
But of this she is certain: Matthew Koeck did not want to die.
His death was not well publicized, yet hundreds of friends crowded into a memorial service two weeks later. Lynne spoke, describing her son as a gentle soul, a free spirit who lived in the present, who remained positive and made the most of each day, willing to help anyone in need. As a youngster, Matthew was happy, busy and fearless. When his family moved to Aylmer from New Hampshire, shortly before his fourth birthday, Matthew wandered over to a neighbour’s house, knocked on the door and enquired whether there were any kids living there that he could be friends with.
Diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when he was seven, Matthew was prescribed Concerta for a year or two, but that drug altered his personality. “He wasn’t him,” Lynne says. “He wasn’t the joking, laughing, full-of-joy boy that I knew.”
His parents enrolled him in Heritage Academy in Ottawa, which caters to students with language- and attention-based issues such as dyslexia and ADHD. Matthew flourished there, but, when it came time for high school, he wanted to attend a “regular” school.
He switched to Symmes Jr. and D’Arcy McGee High School in Gatineau, where he discovered that his classmates also liked him better when he wasn’t on medication. So, at around age 14, he started experimenting with pot to address his anxiety. By 16, he was using it regularly.
“But using at that age alters your brain,” Lynne says. “So, to me, using at that age is really a gateway drug.”
Additionally, Matthew’s untreated ADHD led to poor outcomes in class, exacerbating his anxiety and lack of self-esteem. He began experimenting with oxycodone, which friends would pilfer from their parents’ medicine cabinets.
He ran with the wrong crowd and started selling pot. After being expelled from D’Arcy McGee, he returned to Heritage Academy, where he graduated when he was 18.
The substance use continued, however, and early in 2017 Matthew went into a three-month rehab program near Lac-Mégantic, Que. Lynne visited every weekend.
“He made that place his home,” she remembers. “He was the caring person in that place, the rassembleur. He would bring everyone together.”
But when he returned home, Matthew felt out of sorts, as though he didn’t know where he belonged. He’d fallen in love with a woman while in rehab, so he moved to the Quebec City area to be closer to her.
The next year and a half were, in Lynne’s words, “touch and go.” Matthew couldn’t hold down a job for long. “He was surviving.”
Eventually recognizing he needed help, Matthew returned to Aylmer late in the summer of 2018. Rules about his substance use — pot only — were established, and weekly appointments with an addictions therapist were made and kept. Matthew re-enrolled in a welding course he had started and was talking about taking business courses at Algonquin College afterwards.
“I finally saw that old Matthew,” Lynne says. “He was on track. I’d never heard him talk like that. It was like, ‘Yay, we’re there!’ But what I know now is you’re never there. There’s always work to be done. You’re always vulnerable.”
They had spoken openly about Matthew’s issues with substance use, and Lynne had repeatedly warned him about fentanyl in the drug supply.
“I told him anything could be laced with fentanyl, but he insisted that it wouldn’t happen with him.”
About a month before his death, Lynne noticed changes. Matthew talked less, argued more with his girlfriend, started seeing new friends.
“I was always afraid with new friends.”
Then he came home one night after a long workday. He was tired and anxious. “I love you, Mom,” he said before going to bed.
This past Oct. 8, on what would have been his 21st birthday, Lynne and some of Matthew’s friends gathered at a skatepark in Aylmer where he liked to spend time.
They scattered some of his ashes, then wrote messages to him that were sent skyward on lit lanterns.
On Friday, the anniversary of his death, Lynne planned to spend the day with loved ones, honouring Matthew. Christmas, well, that will be something different altogether, starting new traditions with family and friends.