Thursday, November 15, 2012Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2006. That Christmas we took Mattie to Florida and celebrated the holidays with my parents. Mattie loved Florida, the water, draw bridges, and building on the beach. I am so happy we had these times together. This afternoon, Beth Parker, a Fox 5 News reporter interviewed me and asked to see pictures of the three of us together. The irony is around our home we have a ton of Mattie pictures, but not many on display of the three of us. So tonight I was inspired to find a photo to post on the blog that illustrated what my family used to look like.
Quote of the day: Love is something that if you give it away, give it away, you end up having more. ~ Malvina Reynolds
About three nights ago I had a dream. In my dream, I was surrounded by candy, not UNLIKE in my real life. However, in the dream I decided to send an email to Beth Parker, who is a Fox 5 newscaster. Beth has covered Mattie Miracle events twice already and I like the way Beth reports a human interest story. That may sound easy to do, but it truly isn't. She does it with sensitivity and skill. In any case, in my dream, I wrote to Beth to tell her about our candy drive. I wanted her to know what we were up to, with the hopes that she would think this was a news worthy story. When I woke up from the dream, I was confused because I wasn't sure if I had really sent the email to Beth or whether I just dreamt about it. Nonetheless, I decided to take a chance and try to make my dream a reality. So two days ago I emailed Beth.
This morning after my zumba class, I received a voice mail from Beth. She wanted to come to our home today and "talk candy." Naturally I was VERY excited, but after an hour of exercising, I did not look like I would be ready to go on TV. I quickly put that notion aside and did the interview anyway. Amazing how cancer has changed my life and priorities. When I got home from zumba, I quickly reorganized the candy, and cleaned up boxes and bags which were EVERYWHERE.
I spent 90 minutes with Beth and her wonderful cameraman, Steve. I loved Steve's creativity and I truly think the candy inspired both of them. Beth and Steve greeted me today with a bag of candy that they contributed to the drive, and it is their candy that you can see me sorting in the news piece. They thought of everything! As I told Beth, talking about Mattie helps to keep his memory alive and this is VERY therapeutic. After all, if you could see how much candy we sorted, you would either think something is profoundly wrong with us or that it is a labor of love. Which it is!
It was a very exciting day for us and tomorrow Peter and I head off to the Hospital for Sick Children in DC to give an hour long presentation about the impact of a childhood cancer diagnosis on a child and a family. Our audience is health care providers. We have been working on this presentation for weeks and hopefully tomorrow it will sound coherent.
I invite you all to visit the Fox 5 link below to read Beth's story and see the news footage. I also welcome and encourage you to leave a comment below the video on the Fox 5 page. I think it is important for Beth and Fox 5 to hear your feedback!
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/20112110/cancer-patient-mattie-remembered-with-candy-for-others
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