Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2007. We took Mattie to the National Arboretum one weekend to see the incredible azaleas. As I told Mattie all the time..... azaleas would bloom just to celebrate his birthday! It is one of the special aspects of living in Washington, DC in April! The trees and flowering shrubs start to unfurl and show their natural glory. The Arboretum has trails of azaleas that seem to go on for miles, in all different colors. Mattie would walk up and down hills, exploring all the shapes and colors. Even this white azalea made for a stunning back drop in this photo of Mattie. Around Mattie's neck were his Lightning McQueen sunglasses. It wasn't as if Mattie really liked wearing the sunglasses, but he most definitely loved "Lightning" and carrying some sort of car themed item with us most times.
Quote of the day: People's view of cancer will change when they have their own relationship with cancer, which everyone will, at some point. ~ Laura Linney
Having the ability to work from home gives me the necessary distance from others at times and from the insensitivities that unfortunately exist within most work places. Mainly because in such environments, the majority have not experienced childhood cancer. Thankfully of course! Today, I learned from Peter and my friend in cancer, that it was National Take Your Child to Work Day. I am not sure who came up with this concept, but I do know that if I worked in an office, this would be the one mental health day a year that I would automatically be taking! The sad part about all of this is it should be a positive experience to see children within the work place, to be able to expose them to different careers and for them to see what their parents do for a living and for them to meet their parent's colleagues. Or at least I think so in theory! I know Mattie would have liked this and we took him to Peter's office often before there was an official holiday called "take your child to work day." But now that we lived through 14 months of cancer and lost Mattie, how do we feel about such a holiday? I suppose the question should really be posed to Peter! So I asked him.....................
Peter basically told me that "take your child to work day" was yet another reminder of what he doesn't have in his life. The day left him feeling jealous and envious, he knows what he is missing and he also knows he can't get Mattie back. Words like alienated, isolated, envious, and sad all freely came out of his mouth. Even at lunch time, Peter could see parents walking around town with their children as they were buying them lunch, and in so many ways, the typical city streets which are usually filled with working professionals, were inhabited with families today. So whether in the workplace or outside the workplace today it was a constant reminder that the focus was on children. So overall it was a hard day for Peter. I will never forget Peter's very first "take your child to work day" after Mattie died. I can't say that with each subsequent year its gets any easier to accept, and in some ways with time it is harder. It is harder because all past hurts and memories build upon the other.
When Peter was telling me about his feelings, all that I kept thinking about was my experience yesterday in City Hall while waiting for permits. While in the permit waiting area there was a young woman sitting there with her three year old son. The son was a live wire and literally running all over the place. She could hardly contain him. Getting permits makes me edgy to begin with, but having to listen to this little boy, the dialogue with his mom, and then the banter between moms in the waiting area, I was about to blow. The moms were discussing sleep habits and other parenting issues. Of course these are all nature parts of life. I had these same conversations at one time myself! But what was so natural at one time is absolutely alien now, and when stressed out and sleep deprived my tolerance for anything is low. Very low. I would imagine there aren't studies done on the long term psychological ramification of childhood cancer on parents, but if such studies existed, I have no doubt we would see that thoughts, feelings, and the way parents re-integrate back into the world after their child died would be permanently altered.
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