Tonight's picture was taken in 2009 at the Mattie March. This was a day that I will always remember. I recall the excitement in the air and the amazing turnout of supporters for Mattie. Mattie couldn't get over how many people were there for him. In retrospect, I am so happy he had this moment in time. If I could title this picture, it would simple say "FRIENDS." Pushing Mattie's wheelchair around the track was his big buddy, Brandon. Next to Brandon was Robbie, one of Mattie's favorite Childlife interns, and right by Mattie's side, holding the side of the wheelchair was Zachary, Mattie's closest preschool buddy. If this picture doesn't scream out support and friendship, I don't know what does!
Quote of the day: The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you can not do. ~ Walter Bagehot
Today was another non-stop and busy day. I began the day with a visit to the dentist's office for a check up. I typically see the same hygienist, but today, I found that Libby went on vacation and they assigned me to another person. This new hygienist and I took an instant disliking to each other, and needless to say, her cleaning was painful. Painful enough that I had tears in my eyes. When the whole procedure was done, I was absolutely NOT happy. So I spoke to the management in the office and not only had them write in my electronic file that I never wanted to revisit this particular hygienist, but I also had them make a note that if these personnel changes happen again in the future, they have to alert me ahead of time. I am on a crusade lately with doctors. For many of them, their lack of regard for patients is simply intolerable. If you think I am wrong, try to schedule an appointment with a doctor when YOU want to be seen!!! Good luck. I realize their schedules are busy, but if the rest of the business world ran like their schedules, NOTHING would get accomplished.
I then spent the rest of the day running around doing post-Walk chores, and then I headed to the Georgetown University Hospital to meet up with Dr. Aziza Shad. As many of my readers know, Aziza is the chief of the pediatric oncology division at the Hospital, in addition, she was the attending on call the week that Mattie was dying in the hospital. You can learn a lot about a doctor while watching her help your son die. Aziza was presented with a grant opportunity and she asked for my help in putting it together. It is due next week, and Peter and I are scheduled to go to the beach for a week on Sunday, so wish me luck with this important task. The grant would provide funds to Aziza to establish a grief and bereavement program for families who lost a child to cancer at Georgetown.
Tonight's Walk pictures focus on everything LEGO! We had a wonderful LEGO presence at the Walk this year, thanks to Liz Cortes. Liz is the assistant manager at the Tyson's Galleria store. Liz met Mattie in August of 2009, when Mattie's cancer was determined to be terminal. Liz held a special Lego building evening in the store for Mattie and his buddy Abigail. It was a special evening, because Mattie had the store all to himself and he got to build with several wonderful Lego employees, Brandon and Jared. Mattie touched Liz's heart and out of her own good will she accomplished SO many amazing LEGO activities for us at this year's Walk. Liz also brought 15 Lego folks with her to the Walk, and they all volunteered their time with us for the entire event. To me, they are a group of very special and unique individuals, who are passionate about our cause and helping children.
build table!
I wanted to show you this picture, because pay attention to the GREEN structure in the background. This was a frame constructed of Lego base plates. When each of the grey base plates (like the one you saw Tim working on) was complete, it would literally be attached to the green base plates. Since all the parts were made from Legos, they stuck beautifully together.
You can see Liz was transporting a filled in grey base plate over to the green frame and was going to snap in this last tile.
This evening I decided to do laundry. While dealing with that process, I ran into my 80+ year old neighbor, Kathleen. She too was doing laundry and we landed up chatting for an hour. She was very fond of Mattie and in fact, reminded me of the first time she met him. Which so happened to be in the laundry room! She said she was impressed with Mattie the moment she met him. She thought he was bright, engaging, and mature for his age. She said he captured her attention and wanted to spend more time just listening to him. YEP that sounds like my Mattie. I learned though that Kathleen was just diagnosed with cancer. However, based on what she had seen Mattie endure, she decided to keep her current quality of life and not elect to undergo treatment. She said many people do not like talking to her about this, and though she was hesitant to bring it up with me, she knew I would understand. Which I do! I greatly respect her decision not to undergo treatment and instead to live her life to the fullest now, without being incapacitated from surgery and chemotherapy. I suppose Kathleen's talk tonight made me once again reflect on how Mattie has touched all of our lives. Even in the lives of people who did not know him as well as me.
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