Tuesday, January 17, 2012 -- Mattie died 123 weeks ago today. Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2009. After our trip to New York City, Mattie came home with this great Empire State Building erector set. Mattie loved his trip up to the 102nd observatory, and decided he wanted a replica of this fine building in our living room. This set may look cute, but it took Peter and Mattie HOURS to assemble it. By the way, this Empire State Building is still standing tall in Mattie's room today. Building and creating were our life savers while Mattie was battling cancer. Even on horrible days, and we had many of them, we all built together and created. I think it kept us sane, talking to each other, and helped us forget life for a while and enabled us to transfer our energies to something more manageable and pleasurable. This erector set will always remind me of our trip to New York City together.
Quote of the day: The first duty of love is to listen. ~ Paul Tillich
I went to zumba today, and thankfully felt up to doing that. I hadn't moved in days, and really needed to escape our home and clear my head. Zumba seems like the perfect solution to many of my stresses. When I walked into class today, the instructor, Jenny and I began chatting. There are several moms from Mattie's school in the class and when I explained to Jenny that I was surprised I never met this one mom in particular, this caused us to pause. Jenny explained last week that this particular mom has a fourth grader at Mattie's school. My automatic reaction last week was... that is why I do not know her because Mattie was in kindergarten. Jenny and I let that comment sit, but both of us have been reflecting on it since last week. Because this mom with the fourth grader is actually a mom in Mattie's grade. Mattie would have been in fourth grade this year, but in my world, Mattie will always be a kindergartner. For me life stopped there at age 6, and at times I assume this is true for all of Mattie's friends. Of course it isn't! I am the only one with arrested development here. Jenny began our class today with ABBA's Dancing Queen. She did not say anything out loud, but to me that was her tribute to Mattie. Since we both knew that was Mattie's favorite song used at the hospital for his physical therapy sessions.
My friend Charlie sent me this quote today along with an article on listening which I will share below with you. Charlie is a former student of mine and I have found over the years that my very talented and good students remain in contact with me. I am very lucky to have had such a wonderful group of students who educated me and taught me to be a solid professor, and I feel particularly honored that they reached out to me throughout Mattie's battle with cancer and now our grief. As many of my faithful readers know, Charlie wrote to me each and every day while Mattie was battling cancer. She continues to send me quotes and I store them in a database that I pull from when I need a quote to address my feelings or thoughts for the day.
Today was Ann's birthday. For those coming to this blog for the first time, Ann was our Team Mattie coordinator. For 14 months while Mattie battled cancer, and actually beyond as we were mourning intensely, she coordinated lunches and dinners for us. I did not see the kitchen throughout Mattie's battle, and without the food from Team Mattie, I most likely wouldn't have eaten. Stopping to get food did not seem possible or even desirable to me. Actually caring for my needs was VERY low on my list because Mattie was our sole focus. I know Peter felt the same way! However, Ann's support goes beyond coordination of meals, in a nutshell we were basically united by cancer and death and therefore it provides for a rather unusual and at times complicated bond. We are different people and have very different needs and yet we are there for each other.
In my opinion, birthdays should be celebrated and certainly Ann has done a great deal for us, so there would be no way such a day could pass without us acknowledging her. A group of six of us met up for lunch to celebrate the day. As I told Ann in jest, today is not about her. It is about the opportunity for those in her life to acknowledge her. The art of a good friendship, as tonight's quote eloquently points out, is to listen. Though a gathering may not have been Ann's choice, I am happy she listened to my feelings. In fact, one of the greatest gifts of love we can give another is time together and time to listen. Listening sounds easy, but it actually is a very challenging and difficult skill. In fact, if you are listening deeply to someone, you will find it exhausting.
My friend Charlie sent me the article below, and when I read it, it simply resonated with me. Which I imagine she knew it would. The article is written by a Native American woman, who reflects on how the art of listening was taught to her by her father. I actually found the life lessons her father taught her very moving because he did not sit down and chat with her about the art and skill of listening. Nor did he model the behavior. He simply asked her thought provoking questions and gave her the freedom to figure out the message on her own time. She made mistakes along the way, but she was persistent and continued to try to hear someone's heart and listen between the words. My wish for all of you is that you always have someone in your life like Paula (the author of the article) who just doesn't listen but listens to your heart and between your words. Because it is usually between our words, that great meaning lies.
If You Really Pay Attention
--by Paula Underwood (Sep 21, 2009)
When I was a little bitty kiddy, about five, my Dad began a process … anytime somebody came and said something to us, my dad would say, "You remember what he said, honey girl?” I would tell my father what the person said until I got so good at it that I could repeat verbatim even long presentations of what the person had said.
And he did this all the time.
Finally, one day there was this old gentleman, Richard Thompson. I still remember his name, he lived across the street. And every time my Dad started to mow the lawn, there came Mr. Thompson. And so I would stand out there.
Dad says, “You might come and listen to this man, honey girl. He’s pretty interesting.” And so I listened to him, and then my dad would say, “What did you hear him say?” And I would tell him.
Well, eventually I was repeating all the stories he liked to share with my dad verbatim. I knew them all by heart.
And my Dad says, “You’re getting pretty good at that. But did you hear his heart?" And I thought, what? So I went around for days with my ear to people's chest trying to hear their hearts.
Finally my Dad created another learning situation for me by asking my mother to read an article from the newspaper. He says “Well, I guess if you want to understand that article, you have to read between the lines."
I thought, "Oh, read between the lines. Hear between the words."
So the next time I listened to Mr. Thompson’s stories, I tried to listen between the words. My Dad said, “I know you know his story, but did you hear his heart?” And I said, "Yes. He is very lonely and comes and shares his memories with you again and again because he’s asking you to keep him company in his memories."
It just came out of me. In other words, my heart echoed his heart.
And when you can listen at that level, then you can hear not only the people. If you really pay attention, you can hear what the Universe is saying.
--Paula Underwood, clan mother of the Turtle clan, Iroquois nation
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