NEW ORLEANS — Cathy Tenedorio keeps playing her youngest son’s life over and over in her mind.

“He was the most beautiful baby, 9 pounds ten ounces,” said Tenedorio of her son Matthew who was killed on New Year’s Day in the Bourbon St. attack.

“Nothing prepares you for anything like this, losing your child,” she said. “You hope you can hold on to them until they get old and you die and they live on but that’s not God’s will sometimes. You just have to accept it and be strong for other people.”

Only hours before the chaos ensued on Bourbon, Tenedorio says the 25-year-old spent a joyous evening with the whole family in Slidell.

“It was just a very fun time,” his mother Cathy said. “Relaxing, loving on each other, and then around 930 they said ‘Oh we’re going to head off to New Orleans.”

Tenedorio said they all hugged and said “A big I love you and we’ll talk to you tomorrow, please text me when you get home.”

She says Matthew never made it home and when she couldn’t reach him she phoned his friends.

“They told us, Ms. Cathy something bad happened last night,” she said. 

They told how Matthew was split from the group when a terrorist in a white pickup truck plowed down Bourbon St. and no one could find Matthew.

“We found out that university medical had a conference room set up and because that is where the morgue is, we went there, “she said. “That’s where we found out he was dead.”

Cathy says all that is left now are memories of a young man who was reliable and dependable and who shared a joy for life.

“I remember he said what are you doing up mom? I said I’m going on the beach I want to watch the sunrise and he said, I’m coming with you. He was adventurous like that.”

Now she’s thankful for her final night with her son.

“That is what I’m holding on to,” she said. “and treasuring that God allowed me to have that time with him.”

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