Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2003. Mattie was about a year old, and as you can see he was being transported around in his favorite manner. On Peter's back! Prior to the backpack, traveling around with Mattie was next to impossible. In the summer of 2003, we took Mattie to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. As you can see, Mattie was standing behind an astronaut's uniform, which was on display at a museum in Kitty Hawk, NC. I am sure at the time I took this photo, I wondered if Mattie would be interested in science and space as he got older. I never would have imagined in 2003, that I wouldn't get the chance to find out.
Quote of the day: You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. ~ Khalil Gibran
I received an email last night from one of Mattie's favorite preschool teachers, Lana. Lana wanted to share with me a blog posting she found on line. The posting was a message written by the late Elizabeth Edwards to a mom who lost her daughter, Maddy. I must admit that prior to reading the quote Lana sent me, I was unaware of the fact that Elizabeth Edwards lost her first son, age 16, in a car accident. However, after reading the message below, it became quite clear to me that she understood the death of a child very well. So I then googled Elizabeth Edwards and learned more about her life. In fact, in her bio, it said that after she lost her son, Wade, she quit work, and actually never walked back into her office again. She never even went to clean out her office space. She left everything behind. That may sound odd, but to me it made perfect sense. Nothing she possessed in her former life mattered anymore. With the death of a child, priorities change, interests change, and simply stated, YOU CHANGE! In Elizabeth Edwards' own words, after her son died, she turned her attention to "parenting Wade's memory." I relate to her statement on a very deep level, and in a way reading how she felt made me see that I am not alone in my feelings and thinking. Elizabeth Edwards was not a wallflower or weak by any stretch of the imagination, however, the death of her son, impacted her greatly and she also felt Wade's death may have contributed to many of the issues she faced with her husband.
Elizabeth Edwards said…
I am so very sorry about Maddy. For your family’s loss and for her loss of life with a loving family.
I have often described the death of a child in this way: in life we have a blackboard on which we write all the things we are doing — our jobs, coaching soccer, working at Goodwill, going to basketball games, whatever. And the board is full, so when the next thing comes along, we find a corner or the board to add a computer class or a space between other things for book club or sewing Halloween costumes. It is full and lively and seemingly all important.
And then your child dies, and all the things that were so important that you worked to squeeze them in? Well, they are all erased. And you are left with an empty blackboard. Everything you thought was important was not. And the next time you write something on the board, you are very, very careful about what it is. Your choices about what to do and how to do it are so much more deliberate. Doing something that is so patently important as public service — whatever your politics — well, that seems like an easy call. That is worth some of the space. And putting something on the board, well, it allows you — in your words — to function another day. And each day that you find something else worthy of the board makes it a little easier to put one foot in front of the other. And each day you functioned the day before makes it easier to function again. Are there still bad moments, even bad days nearly twelve years later? Sadly, there are. But they are not as frequent and they don’t happen in that same emptiness you feel today. Now when they happen, we can turn to something that we have written, something worthy of our time, of his parents’ time and we can function through that pain. As you will — not without Maddy, but with Maddy not as a living, breathing daughter but as an inspiration and a helper to decide what is worthy of your blackboard.
I appreciate Elizabeth Edwards' analogy of our life, after the death of Mattie, to an empty blackboard. A board with no writings on it, no identifiers, and only emptiness. I like the visual she paints of Mattie helping Peter and I decide what is worthy now to be placed on our blackboard. A vision that I will carry with me on difficult days.
Tonight Peter and I went out to dinner with our friends Junko and Tad. We went to a restaurant none of us had ever been to before. In a way this restaurant made us feel like we were back in college. It was packed with people and there was a live trivia game going on while we were eating. Tad had his iPad in his work bag, which I was thankful for, because as some of the questions were read, we were able to look up the answers. I enjoyed the the instantaneous access to information! I have a feeling if I had an iPad, I would be absolutely glued to it. However, as I begin to think about writing and capturing my thoughts, having such a lightweight tool with me could be helpful. Especially since I seem to do some of my best thinking in not such convenient locations. When Mattie was sick, I had the chance to see Junko on a regular basis, but unfortunately our lives don't intertwine as often as they once did. Despite that, we do stay connected and it was so nice to have the opportunity to reunite, reconnect, and to have a fun distraction (the trivia game) together.
I would like to end tonight's posting with a message I received from my mom. My mom had a dream about Mattie. Unlike the dreams Peter and I have had, her dream of Mattie featured a healthy Mattie. There seems to be a pattern with all of dreams though, in that when we move closer to Mattie to connect with him or understand what he is trying to tell us, we wake up.
__________________________________________
Wings of a Dream by Virginia R. Sardi
Life is beyond our control even when we give our all to manage it with intense preparation and diligence. Somewhere in our journey of highs and lows, we realize that being committed to the interests of those we love will not necessarily guarantee their well being or happiness. As frail human beings, we attempt to make the right moves that will have positive bearing on our future by treating life’s twists and turns like a chess game where a checkmate neutralizes the dangerous obstacles in our path, only to find that life itself is mysteriously unpredictable defying the rules of any game.
As in life, dreams are not within our power to control or command. Would that we could have the power to dream on command, we might subconsciously find philosophical explanations to the many perplexing questions that elude us in the reality of everyday life. We might find ways to stay connected to those precious to us but lost to us in this world by dreaming in another plane or dimension. But alas, dreams are fleeting leaving us with a host of impressions from which we must sort out the messages hidden to us even as they intangibly float away as in a hazy mist not revealing the mystical key that would unravel their mysteries.
A week ago I had a dream about Mattie. I do not dream often and I’m afraid that when I do, I forget most of it by the time I awaken. Not only did I remember this dream, but I wanted it to continue when I woke up. My dream of Mattie was very different for I could see him quite clearly across a room surrounded by other children and some adults. Usually, when I dream of people they are mostly engulfed in shadows of themselves. In this dream, I did not recognize any of the others in the group but I could see that Mattie was very animated and had the attention of his small audience as he demonstrated “something” to them. They were mesmerized by his performance and so was I as I watched him from across the room. Suddenly, he became aware of my presence and beckoned me to join him. No words were spoken but he just looked at me with an encouraging smile and a knowing look. It was my intention to reach him but I never did because just at that moment I woke up. My frustration at not being able to connect with him beyond that initial moment of recognition was disturbing but then I reconciled myself to the fleeting nature of dreams, which like life itself we have no control over. I was grateful to have a glimpse of a healthy Mattie, before the ravages of cancer, intellectually engaged as was his trade-mark in life who acknowledged me with his beautiful and captivating smile. It was so real a dream that when I woke up I felt his presence in my room. Would that I could command a repeat performance but alas it is not within my power to make it happen again. My interpretation of what transpired in this brief encounter is positive for he was at peace, smiling and happy to see me. What more could I ask for given the reality of the circumstances? I treasure my “Mattie Dream” as I do all the memories I have of him when he was alive and pray that I will once again be carried away on the wings of a dream to be in his presence once again and be energized by the sunshine of his smile.
__________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment