Monday, May 5, 2014

Monday, May 5, 2014

Tonight's picture was taken on May 11 of 2009, during the Mattie March held at his school. What I love about this photo was it wasn't posed or expected. It just captured a moment between friends! It wasn't raining, instead the sun was shining and Mattie's two buddies, Brandon (Mattie's Big Buddy and a cancer survivor) and Robbie (a buddy and child life volunteer) were trying to protect Mattie's very bald head from getting burned. Mattie did not like wearing a hat and truly wasn't at all concerned by the fact that he had no hair. Thankfully on that front Mattie did not mind that he looked different. Now if you went deeper and focused upon the fact that Mattie was confined to a wheelchair and had surgical scars, then Mattie minded greatly how different he was! The photo was taken right before the ceremony we hosted in which we spoke directly to Mattie's support community and then acknowledged all his nurses and caregivers with beautiful Hawaiian leis! Mattie enjoyed the "March" and the support that day, it was one of his happier moments.


Quote of the day: Our lives are like quilts – bits and pieces, joy and sorrow, stitched with love. ~ Unknown

As I mentioned a few days ago, we were expecting the hand designed memory quilt to arrive in the mail! Well that day has come!!! It is hard to believe that in October I mailed off 30 shirts and articles of clothing of Mattie's and over the course of a couple of months, Terri transformed them into this beautiful quilt. It is hard to describe how moving this is and how huge it is. Its dimensions are 90 by 108 inches! Once I get it up on the wall, which will be feat, I will photograph it again, because what you can't see are the corners. In each corner Terri hand stitched a sun or a moon! The perfect symbols for Mattie! This is truly a work of quilting art!

I took some close up shots of some of the patches in the quilt. This one belonged to one of Mattie's Scooby Doo
pajamas. However, in Mattie's clothes I occasionally ironed in name tags so he wouldn't lose his clothes at school. Terri took some of these name tags and incorporated them into the quilt in cute places, like as a license plate on the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine. Mattie would have absolutely LOVED this!

I loved seeing the fact that Terri preserved the Puppy Feet! This was one of my favorite parts of this jumper! It is just whimsical to see this hanging from the quilt!

Seeing these two shirts side by side is fascinating because the blue shirt is from Mattie's preschool and the white shirt is from Mattie's elementary school. It is just very nice to see them presented this way and to also see Mattie's name tag as the "Super Saint!" The Saints are Mattie's school's mascot, but I personally like the way Terri personalized this!

Mattie loved bugs, alligators, trucks, and boats and they are all depicted here. But I personally love seeing the suspenders and the zip integrated into the quilt. It makes me feel like I could almost picture Mattie almost wearing this outfit. 

Lastly, This pumpkin belongs to Mattie's very first Halloween costume. I still remember picking it out for him! Above the pumpkin is a t-shirt from the LaBrea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, a place Mattie LOVED visiting each time he went to California. The quilt holds many memories for us and when Peter saw it, he was over taken with emotion. I had seen the quilt during its construction phase through photos so I was better prepared for the final result. But it is indeed overwhelming to see Mattie's things before us in this amazing format.