Saturday, June 25, 2011

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2007, during our trip to Coronado, CA. Mattie liked water but he was cautious about swimming in it. His healthy respect for the water made my life much easier as a mom, because I knew he never was going to do something in a pool without adult support. As I look at our pictures from our San Diego trip, I realize just how many pictures we took. We must have taken at least 20 photos of Shamu the killer whale at SeaWorld. In part I took all these pictures so Mattie would remember our trips and vacations together. It never occurred to me that Mattie wouldn't be alive in the future, and that the pictures would really be needed by me as reminders of our time together as a family.


Quote of the day: Every morning, I wake up and forget just for a second that it happened. But once my eyes open, it buries me like a landslide of sharp, sad rocks. Once my eyes open, I'm heavy, like there's to much gravity on my heart. ~ Sarah Ockler

Today was a day to remember! Peter had told me earlier in the week that he was going to devote Saturday to tearing up our kitchen floor and laying down new tile. Peter had done this once before when Mattie was a toddler, so I knew he was quite capable of doing this job right. Peter is actually very gifted and can take on most household projects from plumbing, electricity, painting, carpentry, and the list goes on. Peter's motivation to do this was two fold. He knew I was unhappy with our kitchen floor, and second, he also knows he is traveling most of July, and won't be able to tackle such projects.

Why did I HATE our kitchen floor? Well when Mattie developed cancer and we spent many weeks and months living in the hospital, our complex was nice enough to surprise us with new kitchen counter tops and cabinets. This was ALL done while we were at the hospital, so I really did not have much say in the color of any of the items placed in the kitchen. However, in the midst of this kitchen overhaul, our kitchen floor was badly ripped up. So much so that several kitchen tiles were missing. While Mattie had cancer and of course shortly after he died, I could care less about the conditions of which I was living under. But as grief has set in and I spend more and more time at home now, I find that certain things irritate me. A ripped up kitchen floor was high on my list. So Peter tackled that problem today.

Since I knew Peter was going to be busy today, I was thinking that I would go out and run chores. However, as I saw Peter ripping up our floor, I could see there was no way he could do this alone. In fact, not only did he rip up the tile we placed on the floor, but he also ripped up the tile that was on the kitchen floor when we moved in. So that was two layers of thick tiles. It was an absolute mess and while he was pulling up tile, I was picking up debris and carting it to our dumpsters. I am not sure you can see this from the picture, but basically he had to pull up two layers of whitish tiles (the ones we placed on the floor and the original ones from when we moved in). After removing both white tile layers, we revealed the very original tiles from the 1970s, a lovely (I am joking!)yellow/brown tile. Pulling up tile was a major chore, but it did not even compare to actually retiling the floor.

Laying down new tile was something I have NEVER done before. But the tiles we bought were complex and really needed two people on hand to do it correctly. Peter is good with heavy duty and bulk labor, and I am very good at attention to fine details. So I was responsible for periphery work and other areas that needed custom tile fittings. As you can see I am surrounded by tools and tiles. However, this was NOT a fun project. In fact, I had several meltdowns throughout this NINE hour long task. Mainly because at times I thought we were over our heads and maybe this would turn out as a disaster. Peter even asked if we should stop, but something inside of me, said NO! So we persisted and I can honestly say we did a great job. I have now learned the art of tile laying.

When my mom visited my kitchen in May, what struck her about the kitchen is that it needed red accents instead of my blue. Mind you I had just changed the kitchen in the winter time to blue. My kitchen needed an overhaul after Mattie's death because I neglected it for two years and things piled up everywhere. Many parts of my home looked like something out of a bad clinical case study. However, my mom suggested red for several reasons. I have a new red microwave and many of Mattie's pieces of art in the kitchen are red. So today after placing down the new floor, I decided to try red accents instead of blue. It turns out I prefer the RED. No surprise there since red is my favorite color, it was Mattie's favorite color, and these red highlights capture Mattie's art pieces. As I looked around my kitchen tonight, I am surrounded in there by objects of people close to me who died. As you can see I have a black and white poster on the wall. This poster was from July 29, 1982, and it advertised the Creature from the Black Lagoon. My uncle (Dad's brother) gave me this poster because he was involved in the production of this movie. In fact in the poster there are two huge buildings featured behind the creature. The buildings are in Chicago, and my uncle circled the on the poster a portion of the building where he once lived. So that poster reminds me of him. Then next to the poster is a wooden plate. This plate belonged to Peter's grandma. The plate basically says, "of all the places I serve my guests, they always love my kitchen best!" Peter's grandmother was fiery, but we got along very well and she enjoyed her two visits to Washington, DC to see us. Naturally the remaining things around the kitchen are Mattie's. Our refrigerator door features many of Mattie's creations, and if a stranger should enter our home, he/she would most likely think a child was still living here. In a way, Mattie will always be living here through his things.

After a long and arduous day, I can say the kitchen floor is DONE! It looks a thousand times better, and for all the years we have lived in this space, this is the first year in which I am actually enjoying my time in this space. I love sitting at the kitchen table, looking outside into our garden, and of course hearing Mattie's fountains.