Dashing back home from a milk-run, I was suddenly gripped in a huge bear hug. Definitely my Chris, I thought, spinning round.
"Where have you been all day?" I asked.
Earlier that week, my son Chris, 20, found out he was able join the army. After passing his exams, finally he had received an acceptance letter. He was overjoyed.
"I'll be home soon, make us a cuppa please, mum?
"I'm just nipping to Dean's a minute." He said.
I planted a kiss on his cheek and made my way home. It was a warm spring night in April.
I hummed along to the radio as I put the kettle on.
Using Chris' favourite Liverpool FC mug as always - but I was interrupted by a loud banging at the door.
My partner John, 39, rushed down the stairs to open the door. As I stirred the tea, I heard a wailing coming from the front porch. I ran into the hall.
It was Chris' friend, Dean. He was crying, hysterical. Suddenly he ran to the road and started vomiting violently.
"What's wrong?" I demanded, blind with panic.
"Chris had hold of the gun, it's only a replica." Dean cried.
"He was messing around, he leaned on it and..."
Dean struggled with his words in between wretches.
"He shot himself in the face."
His words hit me like a ton of bricks. My legs turned to jelly. Dean told us Chris was messing with a replica gun, pretending to fire it.
But, not realising the gun had been modified, Chris leant his chin on the barrel.
As the gun fired and the bullet tore through his face. Bile rose in my stomach.
I stumbled into John's arms. This can't be happening, I thought. I was only with him 15 minutes earlier!
Where the hell had the gun come from? At the hospital my head was in a whirl. Chris' friends were there, each of them shaking and crying.
Hysterical, I demanded to see my boy, but he was in surgery. Then a doctor took John and I into a small room.
"Chris is deteriorating rapidly...I'm sorry."
I tumbled into a nearby chair. "Please God, no!" I screamed, clinging to John.
My mind raced back twenty years. Happily married to my childhood sweetheart Daniel, then 24.
With two children already, and my Chris on the way, I couldn't have been happier.
Then one day, after kissing me goodbye, Daniel was tragically killed in a car crash. He was in the army too - Chris wanted to follow in his footsteps.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I relived my pain all over again, my other nine beautiful kids rushed to my side.
An hour of agony later, the doctors told me we could see Chris. As I walked in, I saw him in bed on a life support machine. Wires all around him. His head bandaged and his chin was covered in masses of dried blood.
Blurry-eyed from tears, I rushed to his bedside and took his hand. He was lifeless.
We sat with him the whole night, each of us crying, praying for him to get better.
But there was nothing we could do. The next morning, on 25th April 2006, John and I made the devastating decision to switch off his life support.
We gripped Chris' hands tight and his nine brothers and sisters wept as they said their last goodbyes.
Within seconds, he was gone.
The next weeks were agonising. It wouldn't sink in. But I knew he was never coming back. We held his funeral at St George's Church in Anfield.
For weeks I had struggled to lift my head from the pillow. But that morning, as I looked onto the street, I was amazed. Packed with hundreds of people, all dressed in black suits.
They were all there for my Chris. Knowing that my son was loved by so many helped me.
At Chris' inquest on 25th September, 2006, we were told that the gun that fired the fatal shot was a replica that was modified to fire ball bearings.
Pointing the gun at his friends, none had been released. But when he tilted the gun under his chin, the a ball bearing dislodged and the trigger worked.
Gravity, combined with the gun's tilt, meant a stray bullet was fired straight through his chin, shattering his skull. Devastating. A tragic accident.
He was a good kid. He was not in a gang that messed with guns. Rumours fly saying the gun belonged to one of Chris' friends, but with no arrests, we can never be sure.
I cannot believe my Chris would be so careless. He had so much life ahead. Shot down in his prime, just like his dad.
Nobody will forget Chris, or how he died. Such a senseless waste, it breaks my heart. Two years on, I'm determined to do all I can to help keep guns off our streets.
I've been a voluntary youth worker for years, but now my focus is teaching kids about the dangers of guns.
I'm determined not to let another person make the same mistake Chris did.
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