Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2009. Mattie was pictured here with his buddy Maya. Maya is a clinic patient, but does not have cancer. She was the only same aged friend that Mattie made while at the hospital. Otherwise Mattie preferred much older friends! Mattie related to Maya. Maya is a lot like Mattie.... bright, engaging, very verbal, and speaks her mind. In fact, they met one day in clinic while sitting around the art table. Maya made a comment about not liking IV sticks and as soon as Mattie heard that, out of no where, he piped into the conversation and began talking. Which was unusual for him! From that moment on, they just clicked and played very well together as this photo clearly showed. They were quite creative together. In this scene they transformed a cardboard box into a planet and there were alien creatures involved. They performed a show for all of us who were willing to watch the entertainment that day in clinic and the show even had musical numbers!
Quote of the day: I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand. Why shells existed on the tops of mountains along with the imprints of coral and plants and seaweed usually found in the sea. Why the thunder lasts a longer time than which causes it and why immediately on its creation the lightning becomes visible to the eye while thunder requires time to travel. How the various circles of water form around the spot which has been struck by a stone and why a bird sustains itself in the air. These questions and other strange phenomena engaged my thought throughout my life. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci
This coming September Peter and I will be acknowledging the fifth anniversary of Mattie's death, and yet despite the progression of time, there are aspects of grief and day to day living that I would say I/we still haven't mastered. I struggle with the fine balance of the need to isolate and protect myself from those I used to know (who are mothers) to finding ways of remaining connected. Either extreme doesn't work...... complete isolation or complete connectedness. Complete connectedness can't work because we no longer do the same things, we do not travel in the same social circles, or have the same interests. That is directly because Mattie died. I am not connected to a school, I am not raising a child, and therefore the typical mothering things one discusses and those stresses are off the table for me now. I have been instantly moved into the empty nester category. Except the one big problem is I am not an empty nester, my child doesn't exist. I have no one to check on, but have a lot of emotional baggage instead to live with. I assure you this is not pretty lunch conversation!
It is hard to be around groups of women I once knew. Women in which we were united by our children! The natural conversation in these circumstances is our children. If Mattie were alive, I would be talking about him as well. They should be able to talk about their children and I should be able to hear about them, which I do. Yet, at the end of the day, I feel a greater sense of loss and a deep sadness because I can't explain why he is gone. People are talking summer camps and family vacations, and I am focused on the Foundation and writing book chapters about cancer. To me these are stark differences. Of course who said life is fair? I get it, know it, and don't like it. I guess as Da Vinci's quote seems to point out, I will always be looking for answers!
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