Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2008. Mattie received this remote controlled car for his birthday. Which was a great gift for him, because he loved all mechanical things! I snapped this photo of Mattie in action, because his interests always intrigued me. Instead of racing the car around, which he liked to do too, he was lying on his back examining the insides of the car. He built the car rack out of tinker toys because he was on a mission. From age 2, I quickly learned that Mattie was my "little engineer." He would disassemble things and also put them back together with a screwdriver! He was a sight to see!!!
Quote of the day: I think I would cope like anyone copes with any tragedy. I'm sure I would be very upset for a while and then there would come a point where I would either have to stay in this place of darkness and anger, or I'd have to accept that it happened. ~ Jason Ritter
I worked most of the day from home today, but midday I went out and walked through the campus of the George Washington University. I do this often and typically I do not run into anyone I know. After all it is a huge campus! But today, I bumped into Thelma. Thelma was the Counseling Department's Administrative Manager. But Thelma was also one of my students and her birthday happens to fall on a day I will never forget. Thelma was born on April 4th, just like my Mattie. When Mattie was born I was both working at GW and finishing my dissertation. I recall that Thelma was so excited that Mattie came into this world on her birthday. Since Mattie's death, Thelma still emails and writes to me. Naturally on every April 4th, I hear from Thelma and her last card was so meaningful, I saved it. We haven't physically seen each other in years and I imagine to most people I look fine. Which is shocking to them. But as I always say, don't judge a book by its cover. The cover can be deceiving!
As we were talking, Thelma began tearing up about the loss of "our littlest angel." In so many ways it is hard to believe that a seven year old can die of cancer, much less my seven year old. It would be much easier to fall into an abyss of "darkness and anger" like tonight's quote refers to, than to find the courage to live a life without Mattie in it. But life doesn't give you choices, and the choices you have to live with aren't always pleasant. I try to rise above these feelings so that I can help others dealing with childhood cancer, but some days I do pause and say to myself..... this is not what I wanted and expected out of my life.
In the midst of everything else I am balancing this week, Peter and I are headed to Baltimore on Friday to attend a palliative care conference at Sinai Hospital. We have been invited to speak at the conference. That may sound easy considering I write each day, but speaking is different especially speaking as part of a panel. The nature of the panel is free flowing dialogue and perspective sharing, and keep in mind we do not know the exact questions being posed to us. This format does require clear thought and some preparation ahead of time, otherwise, when asked a question, the examples, points, and messages won't be meaningful or succinct. So hopefully I will wrap my head around this notion tomorrow in preparation for Friday. Certainly sharing our story with others is powerful, because during these presentations the content is real, honest, and not censored. Which can be hard to listen to because of its sensitivity and rawness. But of course after the presentation is over, attendees go back to living their lives, and we as parents have just re-exposed ourselves to the trauma of Mattie's diagnosis, battle, and death. Which is another balancing act.
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