Saturday, November 10, 2012Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2006. Mattie was four and a half years old. I love this picture! We took Mattie to Leesburg Animal Park and he loved the hands on petting zoo. Something about this photo gets me laughing, it wasn't that Mattie was chasing the rooster, he really just wanted to get a closer look, but the rooster had other plans. As the rooster began running, so did Mattie.
Quote of the day: Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
My dad sent me this quote yesterday. It is very applicable given the intense action it takes to collect all this post-Halloween candy around town and then sort it. The running total right now is 67 (2.5gallon) bags of candy! That may sound like a lot, but when you see it in person you get the full magnitude of this collection. I included a picture of what our dining room looks like now. Our table is filled, the floor is filled, and today it is migrating onto our side board. This is NOT the end of sorting either. More candy continues to come in.
Peter and I have been asked to give an hour long presentation this coming Friday at a palliative care conference hosted by the Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, DC. We have been working on this presentation in stages, especially since the coordinator of the conference wants our presentation to be told in stories. I have enough stories to fill up a four hour presentation, so trying to narrow down our content is key. Our audience will be health care and psychosocial staff providers. Between candy sorting, we sat down and discussed the presentation in more detail and we are busy working on a PowerPoint presentation filled with pictures illustrating the stories we plan on telling. All of this requires a lot of work, time, and energy. Emotional energy! Certainly telling Mattie's story and sharing our perspective is important, but we want the stories to have a clinical meaning. We want staff members to leave having greater insights into how their care impacts a child and his/her family and along the way share feedback about what did and didn't work for our family. With each presentation we give, I always find it interesting to hear the questions posed to us along with the feedback we receive. Such opportunities to talk honestly about Mattie and our experiences rarely occur in our everyday lives. Therefore, these presentations are always therapeutic for Peter and I. They keep Mattie's memory alive but they also allow us to freely be what we are...... bereaved parents.
No comments:
Post a Comment