Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2003. Mattie was sitting in "tot wheels!" Which had to be his all time favorite toy when he was a toddler. Years ago such a device was referred to as a walker. When Mattie was born (and there probably still is) there was great controversy about the use of walkers. From dangers about falling to the delay of independent walking. All I know was tot wheels was our saving grace. Mattie zoomed around our first floor and outside in our commons area on this thing. He loved the independence, the freedom, and the control that moving on his own gave him. Typically when in tot wheels, there were big smiles like you see here!
Quote of the day: Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them. ~ Jodi Picoult
Today I had the opportunity to meet a friend for lunch. We chatted about a bunch of different things and her creative idea to present at the Foundation Walk in May. Over lunch she asked how I was doing. That of course is a loaded question and depending upon who I am with, the answer may differ. I am always candid, but I just may not elaborate on my feelings or our situation in great detail. The irony is my lunch mate and I share a couple of mutual friends, yet she wasn't aware of how I knew her friends. That to me was surprising, I guess because most of the people I interact with socially know quite a bit about Team Mattie, who coordinated it, and many of the players of our Team. So in a way it always catches me off guard when I meet someone who is a bit more removed from our journey. Yet being removed enables me to talk about the journey because if I don't talk about it, the person I am with will not understand the situation or grasp the beauty of Mattie's life. Which is not an option in my book.
For me, surrounding myself with people who shared Mattie's battle was and still is key. Or at least it is key in how I manage and cope with grief. This has been a vital factor right from day one when Mattie died. I would have to say the first year after Mattie died, NO ONE NEW came into my life AT ALL. I was insulated from the outside world and I guess this desire was what made it impossible for me to go to a support group. My support group had to be people who lived Mattie's cancer battle with me. I did not want to share my story with strangers even strangers who may have had more commonalities with me than my actual friends. Mattie's battle with osteosarcoma was so egregious that unless you saw his battle wounds and felt his anxiety and depression with me, you couldn't be part of my inner circle. An inner circle which was needed to help me re-engage in the living world in a safe manner.
Everyone's grief journey is different, people need different things, and what works for me, may not work for the next parent. But I can safely say that insulating myself had its mixed blessings. Because once a year of grieving was over, things in my world changed. Change is hard for any one of us under the best of circumstances, but under the worst of circumstances change is viewed with fear, anxiety, confusion, and even abandonment. We all want to help others in pain and grieving, but I think we have to seriously consider what happens when we stop providing the same type of support for years to come. For many of us, we think providing help the first year is enough and the grieving parent will then be able to manage moving forward. VERY INCORRECT! If one gets nothing else from the blog, please remember that grieving for a child lasts a lifetime! I know that it may feel that the intensive grieving stage is over after a year, but in my perspective this is just when real grief work begins. Therefore, my one piece of sage advice when helping a loved one grieve is to talk about what that person needs moving forward, making assumptions or putting one's own value judgment on the situation ultimately does more harm than good.
Any case, in response to my friend's question at lunch, I said that I am living, and yet there are days in which I don't feel a part of the living world. Now she could have acted surprised or perplexed, but instead she went on to explain how she feels that many people around me share this feeling. Certainly not for the same reasons, but nonetheless the outcome is the same. This dialogue took me right back to a lecture I once heard in graduate school. Within the lecture was a story about Mother Theresa's visit to a crowd in Baltimore. Her pronouncement had to do with loneliness and the fact that she was visiting a very large urban city where people are surrounded by others, and yet what she observed was very sad, isolated, and abandoned people. That story always remained with me because I think the crux of many mental health issues involve loneliness.
Loneliness in my opinion impacts how we feel about ourselves, the world around us, and can be such a negative spiral because loneliness breeds more loneliness and issues. I am always saddened to hear when people feel misunderstood, not appreciated, and disconnected from friends and family. In many cases the reasons for these things vary, but at the core of what I was talking about today was loneliness that transpires because of a tragedy and unexpected occurrence like the death of Mattie. Certainly we all know what loneliness feels like, but I do think the cause of the loneliness and the feelings associated with that cause must always be assessed and understood.
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