Thursday, April 5, 2012Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2004, at Mattie's second birthday party. My mom snapped this picture of the three of us before the party began. That year Mattie had a train party. If you look at this picture in comparison to the picture from last night (Mattie's one year old party), you will see the common color theme, which always involved red. Mattie gravitated to trains, cars, planes, and anything that involved mechanical motion. Mattie had definite likes and dislikes, and picking his party themes was always easy. The first year birthday theme was Elmo, and the second year was trains. You will find out about his third birthday tomorrow night.
Quote of the day: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday. ~ Kahlil Gibran
As I find is always true with me, special Mattie occasions (a birthday, a holiday, the day he died, etc..) are naturally challenging, but it is the days after these occasions that I find particularly troubling. Perhaps it is because I brace myself for the actual day, almost numb to feelings in order to make it through. However, once the day is over, the reality of it sets in. That reality hit me last night around midnight, and then I found I couldn't go to sleep until after 2am. This morning, my mood continued and the fact that it was grey and chilly outside, did not help matters in the least. Again, I will describe our day through the pictures below.
We ventured to the Assawoman Wildlife Refuge State Park. I don't know about you, but this name troubles me immensely. So much so, that I looked up the derivation of the name. "Assawoman...The name is Indian and the two opening syllables (assa-) seem to be from either Algonquian acaw- 'across,' or Algonquian asaw- 'brown, yellow.' For technical reasons the rest of the word cannot be satisfactorily solved, and the full meaning of assawoman remains unknown."
The Assawoman Wildlife Area remains one of the best-kept secrets along the Delaware-Maryland coast. The preserve was created from 9 farms, ranging in size from 30 to 325 acres. All were lost during the Great Depression and purchased by the U.S. Forest Service. Assawoman has been managed as a wildlife area since 1943. Today, we took an auto tour of the park which was designed by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. Numbered, wooden stakes along the edge of the dirt road guided us. One of the stops was called "Strawberry Landing." This is what it looked like!
At Strawberry Landing, is a wonderful pier that juts out over the water. I snapped a picture of Peter on the pier. But the special part was standing on the pier and looking out at the water and hearing the sounds it made as it hit the pier. This notion wouldn't have crossed my mind, until Peter told me to stop moving and just listen! It was a very special sight and sound. Almost as if we were one with the water. 
In October of 2010, Peter and I went with my parents to the Grand Canyon. Along that journey, I learned about the Ponderosa Pine. Today, as we were driving through the state park, I had Peter stop the car, because to me these looked exactly like the trees we saw at the Grand Canyon. Indeed they were! The park had Ponderosas as far as the eye could see. The bark of Ponderosa Pine helps to distinguish it from other species. Mature individuals have cinnamon-red bark with black crevasses. Younger trees have black to reddish-brown bark. The tree can often be identified by its characteristic long needles that grow in tufts of two or three, depending on subspecies. Its needles are also the only known food of the caterpillars. Sources differ on the scent of the Ponderosa Pine. Some state that the Ponderosa Pine has no distinctive scent, while others state that the bark smells like vanilla if sampled from a furrow of the bark.
As we continued our journey we came along this observation tower. It was about 50 feet off the ground, and Peter stopped the car and we climbed up!
As I approached the tower, I joked with Peter that my name was already on the structure. I do not like people defacing public property, so it is atypical of me to take a picture of this, but I was in that kind of mood today. 
I snapped a picture of Peter climbing up the tower. He always leads the way on things like this, which is funny, because based on his commentary as he climbs, this helps me determine whether I will be following him or staying down below. 
On the top of the tower, Peter took a picture of me freezing! Peter was wearing shorts, and I was wearing two sweaters underneath my blue fleece. 
Behind me in the picture above, was this beautiful and lone swan. Not a sight I was expecting to see!
From the tower we could also see this wonderful marsh. 
At the end of our journey at the Park, we came to a landing which gave us a bird's eye view of Fenwick Island Lighthouse in the distance. The second lighthouse I have seen in two days. 
We then headed to the Bethany town center. Greeting us as we entered the town is "Chief Little Owl."The 24-foot statue at the downtown entrance to Bethany Beach has been a landmark since 1976. The original statue was created by sculptor Peter Wolf Toth, a humanitarian who wanted to give thanks to the United States. The sculpture was donated to the Town as part of his “Trail of the Whispering Giants” project. He created more than 50 wooden sculptures of famous Indians and donated at least one to every state. He also has some located in Canada. The first statue stood from 1976 until weakened by termites, it was destroyed by high winds in 1992. The remains were relocated to the Nanticoke Indian Museum in Millsboro, DE. Today, only the sign remains there, hanging under a portrait of Chief Little Owl. The second, done by sculptor Dennis Beach, lasted until 2000, when rot forced the Town to take it down. Toth created this newest version from a red cedar log from the Pacific Northwest which should last from 50 to 150 years. It was dedicated on July 15, 2002. During the ceremony State Senator George Bunting, D-Bethany Beach, said “it’s a landmark that says ‘you’re in Bethany’ and it pays honor to the Nanticoke nation. It ties us to our heritage.” Charlie Clark, a descendant of Little Owl, blessed the sculpture in traditional fashion with song, prayer and tobacco.
Easter has clearly hit Bethany. I thought the plastic colorful eggs hanging from the trees were adorable. 
While eating lunch, I could see these amazing beds of Tulips in the town.The second message is from our friend and Mattie's sedation nurse angel. Debbi wrote, "Yesterday was so busy I never got to my computer to send you an email of love and remembrance. Work was busy, but Mattie and you were on my mind. I was all over the hospital, and kept picturing Mattie there. The battle he and you all went through here is rarely far from my mind when I'm at work. Every time I wrote the date I thought of you all. I hope you and Peter both made it through the day knowing how much you are loved and how much Mattie's short life has impacted so many!"
The third message is from a newest friend, who is a social worker who we have had the wonderful opportunity to work with twice, once at the DC Palliative Care Conference, and most recently she was our co-facilitator at the Foundation's Symposium parent panel. Kristen wrote, "I know I am a day late, but I wanted to let you know Mattie did cross my mind many times yesterday. I just didn't get this e-mail written to you on the day of his Birthday. My apologies... I hope that you and Peter got through the day okay, and in a way that you felt honored Mattie. From your blog post it certainly seems that you did. And how amazing is it that Mattie, in his 7 short years on this earth touched so many lives. The e-mails that you received and the special ways your friends (and Mattie's friends) remembered him are astounding. What a special boy he must have been. I only wish I had the opportunity to meet him. I think I have told you many times before, but Mattie's story, and yours and Peter's has touched me in a profound way. I am inspired by you and Peter...by what you do for others....by the kindness you each exude...and simply by who you are."
No comments:
Post a Comment