Tonight's picture was taken on our deck in July of 2003. Mattie had just begun to enjoy being in water, and what he really loved was playing in it. Particularly he was fascinated by things that would float, sink, and so forth. He was our little scientist, full of investigation and curiosity.
Quote of the day: There are places in the heart that do not yet exist; suffering has to enter in for them to come to be. ~ Leon Bloy
As you can see the feeder was very busy today! In the corner of the picture, you can also see Mattie's purple stained glass butterfly that remains on our window.
I spent the entire day at home, cleaning out our walk-in closet. I was at it for over six hours. I am happy to report that I can now walk into the closet, see actual shelf space, and a level of organization. I couldn't have done this without Peter, who was removing bags as quickly as I was generating them. In the midst of all of this, Peter would come up and give me a pep talk, and acknowledge the progress being made. This is not a project I would take on during the week alone. It is something that I need support on, encouragement, and at times we land up chatting.
Peter told me tonight, as he was throwing out things I gave him, that he in essence was saying "good-bye to our future." That may sound strange to our readers, because you most likely are saying.... aren't they cleaning up and throwing things out from their past? The answer is yes, but think about why you keep things. In our case, we held onto things because it was our hope to share them with Mattie in the future. A future that will never happen. In addition, Peter and I saved things because we were not sure if we would need them again. What we learned from cancer and Mattie's death is we really don't need THINGS anymore. The objects that once meant so much to us, no longer mean a thing.
Last night, Peter and I chatted about the cleaning up and reorganization process. We are not going through things and crying, we are going through it and are simply numb. Numb again, a feeling I am well acquainted with. Though this time I am numb and disgusted at the same time. Disgusted because we can't believe what happened to our lives. I told Peter that I feel in many ways that I have jumped through several developmental stages, and instead of being where I should be chronologically, I have aged dramatically and find myself dealing with death and dying issues. As I was going through the closet, I came across the cub scout uniform I bought Mattie. I literally bought him this outfit a month before he was diagnosed with cancer. He was looking forward to starting cub scouts in the fall of 2008, and having Peter as his den leader. In addition to that, I came across Mattie's baby shoes, his baptism outfit, and several more cards that he wrote to me. So naturally none of this was easy to see and go through. There was just so much in this closet, and as we were either throwing things away or making piles for Goodwill, I just felt unhappy. This is not how life was supposed to be. I had accumulated many books over the years while raising Mattie. One of them was "What to expect during the toddler years." I asked Peter if he thought we would find a chapter on pediatric cancer in this book. Of course not! Who expects their baby to develop cancer and die!? No one!
I am exhausted tonight physically and mentally, and though I could try to describe the chaos I am cleaning and sifting through or how hard this really is on a grieving parent, no words I feel will do this justice. Sometimes only a visual picture will do. Image if you spent the last two days cleaning out a closet in your child's room. The task alone is challenging, but then factor into the equation that your child died. Typically we clean out our children's closets because new things are going in. However, in this scenario nothing new related to your child is going in, ONLY out. In a way, what is happening to the closet is it is looking more like you and LESS like your child. It is an illustration of loss in a major way.
While I have been contending with the closet, Peter has been going through thousands and thousands of Lego brick pieces. Many of the Lego bricks we are donating, but I know this task has to be hard on Peter. Peter and Mattie connected over Legos. Through Legos they created, chatted, and learned together. Legos were our saving grace through Mattie's 15 month battle with cancer, and during that time we bought every Lego kit on the market. So needless to say, Peter estimates that we have over 80,000 lego bricks in our home! We are saving some of Mattie's special creations, and the rest we will have to make peace with and say good-bye to them. Though I feel we made a significant dent this weekend, there is still so much to do, and looking at it in total is overwhelming. So we take it bit by bit and one day at a time.
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