Beautiful Boy By John Lennon

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Matthew Cobley II was born August 29th 2004 in Torrance CA. Matthew began walking at around nine months old and was talking soon after. 

   Keeping up with his brother Anthony, two years older, Matthew was riding a bicycle without training wheels by the time he turned two years old. 

   Matthew excelled at anything he put his mind to, academics were not something he had to put much effort into. 

   Matthew loved legos at a young age and was able to build advanced sets at seven years old. 

   Typical of the boys in the neighborhood, Matthew was into gaming and riding scooters. Matthew’s ability, along with his brother, to ride scooters prompted me to build a half pipe ramp in the backyard, which is where all the neighborhood kids would come to hang out. As Matthew’s father, I was constantly asked to repair scooters, however, Matthew was the only one out of all the children that I was able to teach on how to use my tools properly to work on these scooters. I couldn’t stand working on them because they were constantly coming loose and the kids had to have them tightened, or in their word “dialed”. 

   At this time, cell phones were becoming more useful for taking videos and posting them on YouTube. Matthew began learning how to edit videos for himself and his friends of all the scooter tricks they were landing so they could post them on social media. Around 11 years old Matthew got his first computer and his video editing skills continued to excel. 

   Matthew’s mother decided to get her sons a trampoline one year. After I assembled it I showed my boys the only trick I knew how to do, a front flip, before I knew it they were doing all kinds of acrobatics on that trampoline. They excelled so much that they had to dig a hole under the trampoline because they were using the tree house that I built them to climb onto the garage roof and jumping into the trampoline stretching it out past ground level. How there weren’t any neck injuries or broken bones is beyond me! 

   During Covid, Matthew began playing a game called Fortnight in his room. He was good enough to earn small amounts of money in the completions and some people were paying him to “assist” them in leveling up in competitions. Many in the gaming world were paying Matthew to edit videos of their kill shots with music drops and gamer tags to be posted on their platforms. 

   During this time Matthew learned how to build his own computers and hack software so he could get around paying monthly fees. 

   Covid, and us moving to another city and school district, separated Matthew from all of his middle school friends. By senior year of high school he ran into some of them while online gaming and they started to hang out again. His friends were all playing instruments and that’s when Matthew started playing the guitar. Matthew turned his gaming dedication towards the guitar and in ten months he played on stage one song for the first time. Matthew loved playing guitar, his love for music was exploding through many different genre from Johnny Cash to Nirvana and everything in between. 

   The few months prior to Matthew’s 18th birthday he had his first job working on surfboards in Hermosa beach where Matthew’s uncle Dan of DANC Surfboards was a surfboard shaper. Matthew also had his first girlfriend Maya. Maya’s family loved Matthew and he was always welcome at their house, Maya said Matthew is the sweetest boy she’s ever known. 

   On August 12th 2022 Matthew finished his work early and had breakfast at Granny’s in Hermosa beach before heading to Maya’s house in Redondo beach on his bicycle. While Matthew crossed the residential intersection of Clark and Harkness he was struck by a vehicle and his body was thrown headfirst into a cinder block wall, Matthew wasn’t wearing a helmet. Matthew fractured his skull in the impact and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. 

   Over the course of the next several days Matthew had his skull removed from the top of his head on both sides in two separate surgeries. After the second surgery Matthew’s eyes were fixed and dilated and I was told Matthew was never going to make it, I had to say goodbye to my son just a week prior to his eighteenth birthday, that was the most miserable thing I’ve ever had to do. It took me two days to accept Matthew’s death and I was able to thank God for taking him and for giving me nearly eighteen years with such a magnificent son. On the third day I went into the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) and that morning they were putting a pick line into Matthew’s arm to keep his organs healthy for donation. After the line was placed an X-ray technician scanned Matthew’s chest for proper placement, it was properly placed. When the X-ray tech was pulling the machine away she leaned in towards Matthew’s face and told him “it’s all recovery from here”. She had no business saying that after I was already told by some of the best doctors in this country that there was zero possibility of survival. At the moment she said that to Matthew, The Holy Spirit entered me and I was lifted up feeling taller and better than I’ve ever felt in my life and I heard a voice in my head that said “you heard what I said to your son, now stay by his side”. 

   Since that day I have had complete faith in Matthew’s recovery and, with my best friend, my cat BigSweetBilly, I stay by Matthew’s side by sleeping in a truck outside of every hospital and facility that he’s been in. I do all of Matthew’s physical therapy because he’s labeled as a lost cause. I handle all of Matthew’s care and appointments. I’ve advocated for Matthew every step of the way, and I will continue to do so for as long as God, in the name of Jesus Christ, will allow me the strength. It is only by the grace of God and the help of so many that I am able to continue.