Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2004. This was a rare sight in our home.... Mattie NOT moving! Mattie was ALWAYS on the go. One of my nicknames for him was the energizer bunny! When Mattie was growing up the only time he slowed down was when he had a high fever. But I have to say even with chemotherapy and multiple surgeries, Mattie had inordinate energy. He rarely slept in the hospital, and as such neither did Peter and I. Peter and I slept in shifts when we were in the hospital, which was often. We spent more time living in the hospital during Mattie's battle than living at home. Literally Peter would come to the hospital right after work and play and engage Mattie until midnight. At midnight, I would take back over and be somewhat functioning until 3 or 4am. At which point, Peter would then take over before leaving for work. It was a moment in time I will never forget. How either of us functioned for 15 months without much sleep was not only a physical endurance test but an emotional one as well.
Quote of the day: Dreams are necessary to life. ~ Anais Nin
For the past several weeks I haven't slept well. I have bouts of sleeplessness since Mattie's death. Some times I have insomnia, but that isn't my current issue. Instead, what I am experiencing is one dream after another. I call them dreams, but some of them are actual nightmares. They seem very real and while I am sleeping, I can feel myself tossing and turning. I wake up just as tired as when I went to sleep. I remember after Mattie died, my body was running on such adrenaline, that sleeping really wasn't necessary. It wasn't necessary because when you get conditioned to living in a pediatric intensive care unit, you are used to NO sleep, constant sounds, and dealing with one health crisis after another. After Mattie died, there was NO way, I could go home and live a normal life. Which may be why only about two weeks after Mattie died, I moved into my friend's house and helped her care for her dying father. Illness, constant care, and death were normal to me. I remember for the longest time, I would be wide awake from midnight to 3am, because my body got so conditioned to those unnatural hours!
As tonight's quote points out, dreams are necessary for life. That is an intriguing quote because two of my dreams last night involved Mattie. Literally I had three dreams in a row. They seemed to occur one right after the other, or that is at least how I perceived them. When I woke up this morning, the dreams seemed quite life like to me. The two dreams that involved Mattie were interesting, especially since I rarely dream about Mattie. But in one of my dreams, Mattie was a baby. I was holding him in my arms and telling him he was a "goose." Which is also odd, since I never called Mattie a goose when he was alive! Mattie as a baby was very vivid to me as was his crying and his looking at me. Then the second dream moved forward in time to when Mattie had cancer. In the dream, Mattie's doctor came to talk to me to let me know that his cancer had spread to his left leg (keep in mind that in reality, the left leg was the ONLY leg of Mattie's that did not develop osteosarcoma!). When the doctor told me this news, I was devastated, and I can distinctly remember trying to process this news, trying to call Peter at work, and also balancing my reaction in front of Mattie. This was a scene (though the information about the leg wasn't accurate), that played out just like this many times in Mattie's cancer care. Each scan result revealed cancer progression and in many cases, I had to hear the news, deliver the information to Peter, and then quickly compose myself to care for and play with Mattie. Remaining strong and focused, and not hysterical, was my demeanor with Mattie. Perhaps this is my personality in a crisis, I am not sure, but I do believe how I managed that day to day trauma did get extended into how I process and manage my grief. Rarely will you find me in a puddle, crying, and out of control. But again, my composure now, just like when I was in the hospital is not indicative of the feelings and thoughts that are played out internally. Which I have no doubt explains why sleeping and dreaming are challenging for me.
While I was out of our home today, I bumped into a mom from Mattie's school. Her son and Mattie were in kindergarten together as well as on the same little soccer team. This mom mentioned that she was going to back to school night tonight and wasn't sure what to expect at the middle school. I heard her, but honestly I was down right confused! Why? Because in my mind, her son was still in kindergarten. My world ended in kindergarten and sometimes in my mind all of Mattie's classmates are also stuck in my time warp. Which clearly they are not. If Mattie were alive today, he would be in SIXTH grade. It is hard to imagine Mattie at age 11. I have no idea what his favorite subject would have been, who his closest friends would be, and what kinds of activities he would have gravitated to. I have NO idea, which is quite upsetting! Just another example of how different I am..... my fellow parent cohort is going to open school night, while I am writing about my dead child. In my mind, Mattie will always be 7, playing with Legos, cardboard boxes, loving vanilla ice cream, and be sharp as a tack and keeping me on my toes.
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