Tonight's picture was taken at the same farm featured in last night's picture, Butler's Orchard in Maryland. It was October of 2007, and as you can see Mattie loved the hay loft. He loved jumping, throwing, rolling, and having a good time in the hay. I remember snapping this picture, and it seems like only yesterday. Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays in general, but since Mattie's death, Halloween only reminds me of what is missing in our lives. The holiday is about children, seeing them pick out and wear costumes, and naturally go around collecting candy. Mattie's last Halloween (2008) was quite memorable. He went trick or treating at the Hospital and also spent the day with his good preschool buddy, Zachary. My goal is to try to find some of these photos for you and display them on the blog next week. Nonetheless, it is hard to even imagine that this will be our second Halloween without Mattie.
Quote of the day: A million times we've missed you, a million times we've cried. If love could have saved you, you never would have died. Things we feel most deeply, are the hardest things to say, our dearest one, we have loved you in a very special way. ~ unknown
I have not seen the sun in Los Angeles since last Friday. It was another rainy and gloomy day here, and after a week of this weather, I can certainly say it has impacted my mood. My understanding is the sun won't be coming back out until I leave. What are the chances of going to the Golden State without seeing the sun? Well actually the chances are high, and I know this fortunately from living here during my high school years.
My mom and I spent the day shopping together and jumping from one store to the other. One of the stores we went into was Michael's. I am working on another craft project and sometimes meandering through a craft store gives me ideas. My mom enjoyed this too and we brainstormed some interesting ways of putting some materials together. However, she did notice all the wonderful art supplies and other fun hands on activities in the aisles that Mattie would have loved if he were alive. It is hard to go through stores and see things Mattie would have liked or been drawn to, and yet be unable to buy them for him. It took me many months to learn and accept that it is okay to buy things for myself now. I was so conditioned as a mom to buy things for Mattie when I went shopping. Over time, I have given myself permission to buy items for myself. It still doesn't come easy to me, since in the back of my mind, I can hear myself saying, why am I buying this? I don't need this, no one is going to care if I have something new or not. In many ways, for Peter and I our world and life stopped on September 8, 2009, and it is very hard to enter back into the real world (a world that doesn't always understand the reality we face internally!).
My mom, dad, and I took a muffin break today. We stopped at a store and I ordered a pumpkin muffin. The irony is prior to having Mattie, I did not care for pumpkin muffins, or anything pumpkin. However, once he came along I started baking and trying to include vegetables into things (with Mattie it was all about concealing items initially in his food, and over time he became a fabulous vegetable eater!!!). So as I ate my muffin today, I thought about Mattie and all the times we made muffins together.
I connected with Peter by phone several times today. Peter went out with a friend of a colleague's last night. The man in question has a daughter who has terminal brain cancer, and she is only four years old. I admire the fact that Peter meets with this dad on a regular basis and tries to be a sounding board for him. Peter listens, offers support, and provides no judgement in his statements. This is quite an important and yet hard thing to do, because we do not all react or manage pediatric cancer the same way. I have a feeling Peter is motivated to help this dad, because he understands how difficult it is for men to find emotional outlets to discuss their child's cancer. The only problem with this of course is that Peter too is facing his own issues with pediatric cancer and sometimes it is hard to support someone else, when you need support yourself. However, I was proud of Peter's commitment to help this dad, and also impressed by his insights that he shared with me. I do believe that in helping others, a great deal of satisfaction results, and I also feel that hearing how others are handling cancer and the pending loss of life enables us to feel less isolated in our own situation.
I had the opportunity to have dinner tonight with my parents and one of my dad's colleagues, John. I met John when I was in high school, so we go back a long ways. John lives in England, but each time he is here on business he reconnects with my parents. We had a delightful dinner and I enjoyed hearing about many of the countries John has visited on his business travels. On our way home from dinner, I captured this sight in my parent's neighborhood. I actually saw this Halloween sighting on a previous night, and I found it so SPOOKY! So much so that I had my dad stop the car tonight so I could photograph it. Frankly even the picture doesn't do this house justice. There are hundreds of jack-o-lanterns around the house, and I lost track of the number glowing from inside the living room window. If this doesn't scream out........ HALLOWEEN to you, I don't know what would!!!!!
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