Saturday, November 7, 2009Tonight's picture features Mattie and his famous left leg, George (whose name was coined by Dr. Bob, Mattie's surgeon). Mattie was using George to play on the computer, because his other three limbs were out of commission from limb salvaging surgery. In all reality, Mattie was amazing, because despite intense pain, his true spirit and character always shone through.
Poem of the day: WHEN GOD CALLS By Cindy O'Connor
When God calls little children to dwell with him above,We mortals sometimes question.
For no heartache compares with the death of one small child.
Who does so much to make our world, seem wonderful and mild.
Perhaps God tires of calling the aged to his fold, So he picks a rosebud before it can grow old.
God knows how much we need them, and so he takes but a few, To make the Land of Heaven more beautiful to view.
Believing this is difficult still somehow we must try.
The saddest word mankind knows will always be"Goodbye."
So when a little child departs, we who are left behind must realize God loves children,
Angels are hard to find.
Today was simply a hard and depressing day. I woke up not feeling well physically, and the physical drain only compounded my emotional state. Perhaps it was the reality that Peter and I were headed home today from Ann's house, I don't know. However, I do know that it is hard to be in our home. Every where I turn I see Mattie's things, his toys, his clothes, his art, and I feel his presence. For me, my home is no longer a safe haven, but it is a reminder of the pain and anguish we have and continue to suffer.
When I returned home today, I unpacked things, and then tried to get myself prepared for a remembrance memorial being held at Georgetown University Hospital on Sunday. The Hospital has invited families who lost a child at the Hospital to this event. We have been asked to bring a framed photo of Mattie and also say a few words. Saying a few words is not an easy task for me. Why? For two reasons. The first is that despite writing on the blog each night, the spoken word as it relates to my memories of Mattie does not come easily to me. Second of which is talking about Mattie in these public forums is not healing for me. What I find is that I land up jumping into my educator mode. Which as the Foundation unfolds, will most likely be a strength that I can hopefully pull from. But I guess what I find fascinating about my statement is that I have believed as a graduate student and a licensed professional counselor that talking for the most part is healing. However, I think I could talk about Mattie until I was blue in the face, and I frankly wouldn't feel any better. There are just some pains that no amount of talking can ever repair and I suppose this is a powerful lesson I am learning.
I framed two lovely pictures of Mattie, but now can't decide which one to bring with me to the Hospital tomorrow. Most likely I will select that wonderful picture of Mattie at Butler's Orchard, where he is holding a large pumpkin he picked off of a pumpkin vine! Peter and I jointly wrote what we are saying tomorrow, so I feel a sense of relief that this was accomplished before midnight! Thanks Karen for coaching me not to reinvent the wheel. I have written so much about Mattie this year, and turning to previous things I have written helped me create what I am saying tomorrow.
Today I received a "friend survey" from Ann. She sent it to several of her friends, and I decided to fill it out. One of the questions on the survey was what date on the calendar are you looking forward to. I gave this question great thought, and to my dismay the response I kept coming up with was NOTHING! There is no date that I am now looking forward to in my life. It was hard to admit that, type it, and to even report that tonight. When you have a child in your life, there are MANY, MANY important dates. But somehow without Mattie, these dates, holidays, events seem a little less joyous, a little less meaningful, and a lot less important. I suppose the fact that I can verbalize this and accept this as a true feeling of mine is a healthy thing.
I received a lovely e-mail today from Charlie. As my faithful blog readers know, Charlie submits a posting each day to me. Many of you know that Charlie was a former student of mine. Charlie and I had respect for each other right from the beginning of our educator-student relationship, and over the years, this relationship turned into a friendship. Charlie's e-mail truly touched me today, because it showed what an impact Mattie's life has had on her, and she never met him. Charlie is a professional school counselor, but because of Mattie's illness and death, she decided this year to obtain additional training to be a volunteer grief counselor. Any case, she shared with me one of her final class activities she had to do, and I found the whole message very touching and would like to share it with you tonight.
Charlie wrote, "I normally reflect on the blog but I am going to deviate a bit on this because I did my last day of training at Haven (an organization that supports people in grief) and I wanted to share with you what transpired on Friday. We've been watching and discussing films and learning about the ways people grieve. We have had presentations on losing a spouse, a child, or other close friends/family and on suicides as well as unexpected and/or traumatic death. But Friday was different, we were learning about "manning" the phones and being the first point of contact and that sort of thing. And then one of the staff members came in to help us do a ritual to complete our training. She did a personal ritual with a candle and then invited us to do a ritual by building a "memory chain" of someone who died. I sat and thought and I kept coming back to Mattie in spite of all the other losses I've faced so I went with the feeling. We were asked to pick a threading cord (different colors and materials), then from a variety of beads/objects and make knots to separate them. I had no idea what I was going to do but I felt guided once I started. We were to write down what they meant on a card and then share it. So here goes. A red cord that while thin is very strong -red for Mattie's favorite color and the strength for his connections to family and friends and his drive to live, A letter bead of "M" for Mattie, miracle, magic and marvelous, all the things that describe him for me, A baseball for the Boston Red Socks, his favorite team and symbol of the father son bond, A cat for Mattie's love of animals and for Patches in particular (also JJ)A ladybug stands for Mattie's love of all creepy, crawly things (no roaches available), but also that ladybugs are helpful, they are found in our gardens and they symbolize spring and renewal, A fish for the fish tank at Georgetown that Mattie loved as well as his last pet who went on to heaven with him, And finally a bell, for magic, for music, for Mattie's wind chime that rings with no breeze, and from the movie, A Wonderful Life (every time you hear a bell, an angel gets his wings)-for the sound of Mattie graduating to his wings.I have not yet decided whether to keep this in my purse or put it in my car, but either way, I will see it daily and think of Mattie. Be at peace for a moment knowing just how much he meant to so many of us."
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