Sunday, February 13, 2011

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2003. This was one of many adventures Mattie had visiting a petting farm. As you can see here, Mattie wasn't sure whether or not he wanted to approach the cow, but over time Mattie began to love these experiences. Caring for, nurturing, and being respectful to animals are important to me and to Peter, and we wanted to expose Mattie to animals at an early age, so he shared in our interest. I can't think of a better way to learn about responsibility and love than through animals.


Quote of the day: Grief is the price we pay for love. ~ Queen Elizabeth II

Peter and I had the wonderful opportunity today to have brunch with Mattie's oncologist and our friend, Kristen. Kristen had a baby last May, and today we got to meet 10 month old Conor. Despite his cold, he was a real trooper throughout lunch and at one point Peter was entertaining Conor and I snapped a picture of them. Peter has a knack with children, and I have noticed they tend to just gravitate to him. Conor has his mother's eyes and as I was watching him, there were so many things that reminded me of Mattie at that age.

I am not sure how many families become friends with their child's oncologist, especially after the child in question dies, but for us and Kristen it was a natural progression. In fact, because Kristen and I have so much in common, our friendship was bound to happen. Again, here is yet another example, of a friend that has entered into my life because of Mattie. Though Mattie is no longer physically with me, the connections he established for me keep his spirit and memory alive.
After brunch, we returned home to do MORE cleaning. I am not sure that was a great idea, since we worked SO hard yesterday. It isn't only physically demanding work, it is EMOTIONALLY laden work. Every muscle and body part ached today, however, I was determined to continue on Mattie's room and also to attack our living and dining rooms. Though the downstairs of our home wasn't as chaotic as Mattie's room (thanks to Peter's efforts), things were still piled all over the place, and I have been finding the piles of things very depressing. So again, Peter and I worked for another three hours today. However, while I was working, I was feeling SO tired, overwhelmed, and physically sick. I tried to push through that feeling, but then developed an optical migraine and couldn't see out of my left eye. So that was the signal that I HAD TO STOP. We took a few pictures of Mattie's boxed creations today that I wanted to share with you.

This was Mattie's cruise boat. As you can see, Pinkie, the wooden character, was sunbathing on the top deck of the boat. What you need to know is that Pinkie was a very valuable therapeutic character for us. Mattie's art therapists and I, one day in clinic, played out a whole session with Pinkie. Actually we had MANY sessions over time with Pinkie. Mattie transferred a lot of his fears and anger into Pinkie's character, and this enabled us to see how he was feeling, and our responses to Pinkie during our play sessions were always empathetic to Pinkie's plight but also psychoeducational. As we tried to give Pinkie strategies for handling certain issues and fears. I will never forget Pinkie, which is why she is sitting on Mattie's chest of drawers in his room now.

This red box, was transformed by Mattie into a rocket ship. Notice he even put his initials on it! Inside the rocket, I found "Blue Boy." The counterpart to Pinkie. Blue Boy was the good and responsible character, and he now sits next to Pinkie on Mattie's chest of drawers.

One day in clinic Mattie had a boat race or competition with his buddies Brandon and Jocelyn. Mattie constructed this boat and as you can see the humility, Mattie had Jocelyn write on his boat, "Mattie's boat is better!" Notice the peacock feather as the boat's sail!











In this particular boat race, Mattie and Jocelyn teamed up against Brandon and Jocelyn's sister. Mattie named their boat, "Team Mattie and Jocelyn." Notice the person sitting in the center of the boat was made out of wire! Naturally Mattie won this boat race and I recall Toni (Brandon's mom) telling me that Mattie announced he did not like competiting against his best friend (Brandon).








I end tonight's posting with a message from my mom. My mom wrote, "I know what a difficult task it is to clean up what is left over from a precious life that is no longer. When grandma died, I left her room exactly the way it was for over three years and kept all her personal effects. It was only after a general remodeling that I tackled the project but I can still remember how painful it was to dispose of her things. Coming to terms with Mattie's past is a monumental feat and a traumatic upheaval to the senses and the mind but especially impacts the heart with blinding numbness. Clean-up had to be done for whether you like it or not, life does go on and you are forced to go along for the ride just because you are alive. You are on a grieving path, not one you would have chosen for yourself, with many unexpected twists and turns but you have wisely avoided maudlin self-pity and instead used your strength of character to build a legacy for Mattie, one that will live through the ages!"