Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2007. Mattie was attending his friend, Ellie's birthday party. Mattie loved that party for many reasons. First and foremost because many of his friends from preschool were gathered together for this event, and he felt very comfortable with his new found buddies. But second, Ellie had a pony party, and all the children got to ride on the pony that day! As usual, I had my trusty camera with me that day, and was snapping pictures. As you can see here, Mattie and his close friend, Zachary, were on the slide together. But clearly you can see a major dialogue and discussion was occurring between them. As if they were negotiating and analyzing something happening in the distance. What you need to understand about these two friends were they were inseparable. Their friendship just clicked from the first moment they met each other. Such friendships are rare and special and I am so happy Mattie got to experience such a close bond in his short life.
Quote of the day: Losing a child is like a broken down car. To go in reverse brings painful memories. To go forward is too scary without your child. So we sit in neutral with our hands clutched to the emergency brake, hoping someday to find a way to run again. ~ Denise Bellion
Well tonight's quote is an interesting analogy to surviving the loss of a child. I get this parent's point, but I look at it a bit differently. I am NOT driving a broken down car. On the contrary the car I am figuratively driving has been transformed from an automatic car to a standard shift car. On the surface, both cars look the same (or in other words I may physically look the same despite Mattie's death), however, if you have never learned to shift gears while driving, there is NO way you are going to be able to simply operate the car without it being a jerky experience and stalling out. Life without Mattie now is equivalent to being an inexperienced standard car driver. I go around town and life, but everything is confusing, I have no idea how to operate and navigate from moment to moment, and worst of all, I have no control on when my car (or literally my mind and body) will stall out.
I had another whirlwind of sleep last night. I woke up from a terrible dream and then could not go back to sleep. My dream was very confusing, and it involved surgery to my head. As a result of the surgery, I was left permanently blind. In my dream, I could see myself waking up in the recovery room, and being unable to see anything. I was screaming, beyond upset, and felt an incredible sense of loss for myself, but a loss that I wouldn't be able to see any of Mattie's things that surround me. Needless to say, once I woke up from that nightmare, I was unable to get back to sleep.
With several nights of inadequate sleep, and now a full blown head cold, I felt like the walking wounded today. Peter and I did go out for a little bit and headed to a mall I rarely go to anymore. It is the mall with the Lego store that Mattie frequented often. While I was shopping, Peter went to the Lego store and visited with Liz, the store's assistant manager and the person who has been extremely instrumental in helping us incorporate Lego's into this year's Foundation Walk. Feeling as depleted as I was today, I knew I couldn't go to the store, but I am so happy Peter did. Liz immediately recognized Peter, and Peter recalled to me his many past interactions with Liz when he and Mattie bought Lego kits together at the store. Needless to say, this particular mall is filled with incredible memories of Mattie for me. I spent many hours strolling around with him through the mall on cold days, well that was until he became mobile and made it quite clear that he HATED malls. Mattie couldn't stand crowds, loud noises, and chaos. Ironically I spent so many years protecting him from these things, that I have NOW become just like him. When overwhelmed by my physical environment, I will simply remove myself from it!
I spent the rest of the day today in bed trying to rest and recover. But sleep at any time of the day doesn't come naturally to me. I appreciate many of you writing to me today and promise to try to return emails soon.
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