Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken on Valentine's Day of 2009. My last Valentine's Day with Mattie. Mattie was in the hospital for yet another holiday and that day Jenny and Jessie (his art therapists) worked with him in the childlife playroom to create a special gift for me. Mattie designed many things that day, from the paper crown on my head, to a valentine's box with cards, and then he also gave me a clay painted vase (that he had been working on over time) with tissue paper flowers. When he presented all the gifts he made, Jenny snapped a picture of that moment. The picture wasn't posed it just happened naturally and Jenny captured it. This is one of my favorite pictures of Mattie and I in the hospital. Why? Because this was a very typical moment for Mattie and I. He would always stare at me in my eyes and want to touch noses. It was like his sign of connecting and affection. Needless to say, I have all these gifts still. The vase with tissue paper flowers is in my living room and the box with valentines and crown are in our bedroom.

Quote of the day (actually a poem): I Wish You Were Here by Angela Salyer

Although from Earth, our loved ones are gone

They live in our hearts as time goes on
God truly blessed us with the time that we had
Though their departure leaves us very sad
"Time heals all wounds" We've heard it before
A broken heart gradually begins again to soar
God works miracles in His time, not ours
Not by our wishes, but by faith and prayers
By each person he claimed, we were given a gift
Wonderful memories for our spirits to lift
Reunions and Christmas, and simple every day fun
To carry with us always, until our work here is done
Thank God for Kodak, for video and audio-tapes
And for the time together that this family takes
The message is clear from those who have started life anew
"We're waiting in Heaven for each and every one of you"
Each one would say "Don't cry for me dear"
"This place is wonderful, I wish you were here"

Back on June 7, 2010, I posted the above poem entitled, "I wish you were here." If you go back to that blog posting you will see that I was less than happy with this poem. Keep in mind that Mattie had died only nine months before I read it and for the most part I could not manage the feelings expressed by the author. In addition, those closest to me, know that I am very capable of lashing out both verbally and in writing. My friend Ann says to me at times she has to be like "Teflon" because otherwise, the things I say to her would probably be considered hurtful. Naturally I do not set out to intentionally hurt anyone, but when I feel most vulnerable and dealing with Mattie's loss, my ability to censor or present things in a more palatable way simply decrease.

Today, I actually received an email from the author of this poem. Angie is a survivor of multiple losses and she actually uses poetry and writing to express herself and her feelings about the various tragedies she has endured. Angie shared her poetry with only selected people, and was stunned to find this particular poem on the Internet and on Mattie's blog. Writing can be a very private and personal thing, especially when it reflects upon one's thoughts and feelings regarding a loss. Therefore, I am sure finding her poem all over the Internet and on a blog was a bit disconcerting, especially since from her vantage point she never gave any of us access to her inner most thoughts. As I told Angie today, the poem was sent to me by a friend who found it on the Internet. This is the beauty and the complexity of the Internet these days. It gives us access to everything, even maybe to things that weren't meant to be published.

However, my comments about Angie's poem were less than complimentary back in 2010 and as I told her my intentions were not to insult her but instead were a reaction to my own hurt and anger over Mattie's death. Angie wrote the poem to bring comfort to her own life and world, and I imagine was quite upset when she perceived her poem as causing me or anyone else pain. But here is the thing, as I told Angie tonight, her poem (though I did not agree with it in 2010) was actually therapeutic. I view it that way because it helped me express my frustration and anger, it got me to sit down and write and get out my feelings. Whether they were positive or negative. To me the expression of any feeling is very healthy especially when dealing with the death of a child. Now almost two years later, I can reflect on Angie's poem and Angie's email today and I can see my own progress. My progress is that I can appreciate where Angie was and is coming from, and understand that her faith in God and her expressions in poetry are avenues that continue to help her with grief. I can now step back and see a different perspective to this poem and appreciate the meaningful intention Angie had when writing it. I think it took Angie great courage to write to me today, but as I said to her, I learned something about myself and about grieving. We all have different ways and needs to cope with our loss and losses and the greatest gift in all of this is we can unite together and discuss these differences and our similarities. This further confirms to me that the grief process is a life long one, in which I learn and feel something new with each turn.

My health saga continues. I saw one of my two doctors today who followed up with me about the MRI results. She and my doctor at Georgetown have two completely different strategies on how to proceed. Just NOT what I needed to hear. The doctor today asked me to trust my gut feeling as to what to do. I told her my gut feeling was ALWAYS right with Mattie, but frankly I have absolutely no inner voice when it comes to understanding my current situation. I have no idea why that is the case other than I am probably so bogged down with emotion and fear that I can't hear/think straight. Any case, knowing that I have two very qualified doctors with two separate opinions makes me uneasy, so I felt the need to seek a third opinion. Again I reached out to one of Mattie's doctors, Kristen (the oncologist who is my friend and writes to me each tuesday in memory of Mattie), and she connected me with another top oncologist in the area who I will see on Tuesday. So I head back to Georgetown tomorrow to consult with my second doctor, but I know already how he feels about my situation. He presents the more aggressive and radical approach which will be a hard approach to listen to tomorrow.