Tonight's picture was taken on July 30, 2009. You maybe asking yourself, what was going on around this table?! Who were the cast of characters? Well Mattie you recognize in orange! The lady in pink is Denise, Mattie's social worker. Jocelyn was sitting next to Mattie on the stool. The man in the yellow shirt is the "Magic Man." Mattie's head of the lower school, Bob Weiman. Bob came to the hospital and to our home on many occasions to teach Mattie how to perform magic. However, Jocelyn and Maya (the cutie in the blue shirt), Mattie's buddies, enjoyed Bob's visits and participating in the magic shows. In fact, Bob recently told me when I was visiting the Kindergarten class last week that he sent Jocelyn a magic trick shortly after that 2009 visit to the clinic. Bob remembers Jocelyn well, as do many of our supporters since Jocelyn came to almost all of our Foundation walks! Though this was the "art therapy" table in the oncology clinic, the table was used that afternoon to learn magic, to perform magic, and to gather as friends. That was the beauty of what Jenny and Jessie (Mattie's art therapists) created for this space, a warm, inviting, and safe environment for all of us to gather. They had no agenda, just the motivation to help children and their families cope, process, and create.
Quote of the day: The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues. ~ Terry Pratchett
I learned today that Mattie's memorial quilt is done! This quilt has taken months to assemble and great thought and attention to detail went into designing it. It was crafted by Terri Tomoff. I met Terri at Georgetown University Hospital. Her son is a cancer survivor and she actually started making quilts as a creative outlet when her son was diagnosed. Throughout the years she has perfected her trade and the quilts she designs are true works of art. Terri doesn't just make and sell quilts, on the contrary she is very charitable with her quilts. She is part of quilting guild and they donate hundreds of quilts to military service members overseas and to children with cancer all around the Country. Terri is kind enough to offer her services as a raffle item each year for our Foundation, in which she will work with a lucky winner and design for them a hand made t-shirt quilt. Building memories for families!
Going through Mattie's closets and drawers in October was no easy feat. Many of the clothing items I donated or gave to certain people who had children. But 30 of the items were so special to me, I couldn't part with them. Well actually that isn't true, maybe 50 items I couldn't part with.... 20 of them landed up in my own drawers, and the other 30 I mailed to Terri. Terri has been working away at integrating Mattie's clothes into a patchwork quilt. Keep in mind that Terri has never meet Mattie. She only created the quilt based on what I told her about him, about his likes, and what he gravitated to. Of course she could tell some things about him based on his clothes and the themes pictured on them. Any case, when I receive this 68"x 90" quilt in the mail, I will photograph it for you. But there is a special place on the wall in Mattie's room dedicated for this art piece!
I am signing off for today. I will write to you tomorrow from Columbus, Ohio!
No comments:
Post a Comment