Saturday, October 20, 2012Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2002. Mattie was six months old, and his first Halloween was approaching. I remember taking this picture because I literally placed both the pumpkin and Mattie in the chair together, and as soon as I did, Mattie reached for the pumpkin. I believe this is my first time posting this picture to the blog, because I only came across it weeks ago.
Quote of the day: The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes. ~
Viktor Frankl was a gifted psychotherapist who created and defined the field of existential psychology. He was a concentration camp survivor and his experience living in captivity and observing how this impacted the human spirit greatly influenced his theory and work. When I learned about Frankl in graduate school, I was immediately drawn to his depth and his perspective which is that our inner conflicts arise when we confront the givens of existence (eg: death, freedom, responsibility, and isolation). Which in essence means that we ALL have conflicts and instead of them being pathological, they need to be understood as part of being human. Of course how we deal with these conflicts may not always be in our best interest.
Weekends tend to be challenging for Peter and I. Yes we are three years into the loss of Mattie, and yes we are still waffling through the weekends. However, it felt as if we chose our "attitude" today. It could have gone either way in the morning, but by mid-day we had a plan. I went with Peter for the first time to the golf driving range. Peter loves golf, I on the other hand never played it. Other than in miniature form! Before Mattie was born, Peter was a business consultant and he played a lot of golf with clients, his company, and in tournaments. However, when Mattie came along and Peter changed companies, his chances to play golf dwindled. With Mattie's death, this is a sport Peter has re-engaged in. The beauty about golf from my perspective is it is a sport you can play throughout your life and it also takes place typically in a lovely outdoor setting. So today Peter taught me how to hold a golf club and to swing. It looks a whole lot easier than it actually is! There is nothing intuitive about keeping your left arm straight as you swing, and don't get me started about the actual stance of bending your knees. Nonetheless we had a good time together both on the range and putting green. Peter is a good teacher and watching him hit golf balls shows me that he not only likes to play but he is a good player. He just makes it look easy.
After being outdoors, we went out to lunch together at a restaurant I have introduced Peter too. My friend Karen makes fun of me because I tend to love restaurants whose names start with the letter C. I have no idea why this is the case, but wouldn't you know it the name of today's restaurant also started with the letter C. Go figure! Choosing one's attitude as Frankl implies is one of our human freedoms, and yet it can be so daunting to allow one's self to have a positive or upbeat attitude for various reasons. Our reason centers around the death of Mattie. For whatever the reason, I am glad we had some nice diversions together today.
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