Tonight's picture was taken on July 25 of 2009. This was the last birthday I celebrated with Mattie. Linda, Mattie's child life specialist, bought this cake so that Mattie could celebrate and sing happy birthday to me. I remember this moment in time like it were yesterday. To me, Mattie looked physically better and the fact that he could even smile after all he had been through was a feat or a miracle. A Mattie Miracle! However, less than two months after this photo was taken, Mattie died. It is a hard reality to continue to face no matter how many months or years go by!
Quote of the day: I love you more than there are stars in the sky and fish in the sea. ~ Nicholas Sparks
When I saw Nicholas Sparks' quote today, it reminded me of what I always used to say to Mattie. My line to Mattie was that "I love you to the moon and back!" Mattie loved that notion and when he first heard me say it, he literally tried to figure out the distance between the moon and back! He wanted to know just how much love that represented! Over time, he realized that it basically was A LOT of love, and he was happy with that! During tender moments, Mattie would tell me that he loved me to the moon and back too. It seems rather symbolic in a way that we called Mattie, "Mattie Moon" and that we used the moon when he was alive to mark the distance or amount of love we had for each other. In so many ways, the moon in the night sky represents Mattie to me, and when I see it shining it reminds me of the long distance love we have for one another.
Peter and I are still on Mediterranean time! I got up at 5am and couldn't go back to sleep. Instead of fighting it, I just got up and proceeded on with my day. But now that it is 4pm, I feel exhausted. I have to fight going to sleep now!!! Today, I received a lovely email from a friend and colleague of mine. She sent me a "just because" email. Or in other words, an email for no specific reason or occasion other than to say hi and that she was thinking of me. That put a smile to my face! As did so many emails I received in the past day or so from friends welcoming me back.
On an aside, when Peter and I checked into Heathrow Airport on Saturday, the ticket agent printed out our boarding passes. As we were walking away from the counter, Peter stopped and said something was wrong. So I followed him back to the counter. The ticket agent gave him a boarding pass for a "Paul Brown" going on a different flight. Honestly! Talk about a security issue. She corrected the issue and apologized for her mistake, but his mistake has followed us all the way home. While boarding the plane, Peter's boarding pass was scanned into the computer, however it wouldn't scan in. Nonetheless, he was allowed onto the plane. Got to love that security breach too, no?! While sitting in our seats, a flight attendant came up to us and asked to see Peter's board pass. She said it appeared according to the computer that he wasn't in his seat. The passenger sitting next to me, had a sense of humor and literally he pinched me on the arm and said.... "no she is VERY much here!" The flight attendant looked at our boarding passes and gave us the okay. Peter checked on-line with United today to make sure we got credit for our flying miles and guess what?! According to United Peter never took the flight home with me. The whole thing is funny if it wasn't true!!!! Thankfully we kept Peter's boarding pass! But this is a lesson to all travelers, check your boarding pass before walking away from the counter. Mistakes happen and once they are made it follows you throughout the entire flight. I am just happy Peter's luggage made it home and did not go with Paul Brown to whatever destination he was headed!
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