Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2005. Mattie attended a birthday party with his cousins, who lived in the Washington, DC area back then. As you can see the children were eating a cupcake. Seeing Mattie's plate doesn't surprise me in the least. Mattie just did not like sweets! In fact, he usually landed up giving me his cakes and treats. In that sense Mattie and I were the exact opposite. Also of note in the photo was Mattie's sippy cup! A sippy cup came with us at all times, EVERYWHERE. Mattie did not like water and he also didn't like juice. His drink of choice was always MILK. Rather ironic that of all the cancers Mattie could get, he got bone cancer. Our joke prior to Mattie's cancer diagnosis was that Mattie most likely had the strongest bones from all the milk he consumed.
Quote of the day: Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. ~ Carl Jung
Peter and I started the day with a plan. A plan on the weekend is always a good thing for us. Believe it or not, four years into Mattie's death, and the weekends are still very challenging for us. Mainly because weekends symbolize family time and how we used to spend our Saturdays and Sundays no longer exists. Our world changed, we lost our son, but the reality is the world in which our friends live has remained the same. They still have sport activities, school events, and other social gatherings. These things occur without us, which I must admit is earth shattering to a bereaved parent. For us our world ended when we lost our child and at times it is hard to grasp that others are still standing, breathing and going about their every day business. Almost as if we are living in an alternative universe where nothing makes much sense anymore.
I have to say that starting to clean out Mattie's room was very difficult for me to do this Fall. I really took on this challenge by myself and it was no small physical or emotional task. Yet by having the courage to address Mattie's space, I was able to reclaim it so that I can showcase Mattie's art work and his spirit in a more meaningful way. However, it has been like a domino effect. Once I tackled Mattie's room, I think it inspired Peter and I to address other areas throughout our home. Today we went running around together looking for two new chairs for our living room. We purchased one today and dragged it home together. Slowly we are trying to change the look of our surroundings so that we can feel comfortable once again in our own home. It has taken quite a bit of time to reach this stage.
This evening we joined our friend at a DC tradition, called the Capitol Steps. Peter and I saw this show a decade ago. But the beauty of this show is it changes from year to year because it is basically political satire set to music. It makes fun of both political parties, and it does it in a light, humorous, and witty manner. Needless to say if this show doesn't make you laugh, nothing will. For those of you not familiar with this show, here is some history on the Capitol Steps group:
The Capitol Steps began as a group of Senate staffers who set out to satirize the very people and places that employed them. The group was born in December, 1981 when some staffers for Senator Charles Percy were planning entertainment for a Christmas party. Their first idea was to stage a nativity play, but in the whole Congress they couldn't find three wise men or a virgin. So, they decided to dig into the headlines of the day, and they created song parodies & skits which conveyed a special brand of satirical humor. In the years that followed, many of the Steps ignored the conventional wisdom ("Don't quit your day job!"), and although not all of the current members of the Steps are former Capitol Hill staffers, taken together the performers have worked in a total of eighteen Congressional offices and represent 62 years of collective House and Senate staff experience. Since they began, the Capitol Steps have recorded over 30 albums, including their latest, Fiscal Shades of Gray. They've been featured on NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS, and can be heard 4 times a year on National Public Radio stations nationwide during their Politics Takes a Holiday radio specials.
When we arrived home from the show, we were greeted outside by our upstairs neighbors. They were having a "SIDEWALK ASTRONOMERS" party in memory of John Dobson. I learned today that Dobson died on January 15, 2014 in Burbank, CA (where my parents live). In the 1960s, Dobson co-founded the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers, an amateur astronomy organization that aimed to popularize astronomy among people on the street, along with Bruce Sams and Jeffery Roloff. Sams had built a large telescope but because he was only 12 at the time he was not eligible for membership in the only local club, the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers, thus the "San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers" was born. It was also at this time that Dobson's simple form of telescope, which came to be known as the Dobsonian, became well known after he started teaching classes to the public on how to make your own telescope.
Needless to say, I had the opportunity to look at stars and even the MOON tonight through a high powered telescope. I have never seen Mattie Moon so close up. I could see the craters on the moon and naturally I had to wonder whether Mattie was looking back at us. I can see Mattie Moon outside the window, but the view through the telescope was truly remarkable and made me feel slightly closer to Mattie tonight.
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