Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2009. Around the time of Mattie's birthday! On either side of Mattie were Jerry and Nancy! They are the famous music volunteers at the hospital that came into our lives on Day one, the night Mattie received his first dose of chemotherapy. Jerry and Nancy became an integral part of our support team at the hospital and practically visited us every week. They brought us music and conversation. A mental health diversion. They also played a "name that tune" game with Mattie that he absolutely loved. That particular night Mattie guessed all the songs correctly by hearing the first couple of notes and Jerry gave Mattie a prize!
Quote of the day: The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats... ~ Albert Schweitzer
Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to go out to dinner with Jerry and Nancy. Over the past five years since Mattie died, they have reached out to us consistently to meet for dinner. We developed a special connection in August of 2008, and that bond remains with us today. It all started because we were in the hospital uniting around helping Mattie battle cancer. The beauty of Jerry and Nancy is they meet with Peter and I because they want to. They are not compelled to because it is their job associated with the hospital and they aren't looking for funding from us for something. They are simply part of our cancer story and as I learned last night, they value this component of their lives just as much as we do.
How did Jerry and Nancy first meet us? Well I will never forget our first night in the hospital in which Mattie was awaiting his first dosage of chemotherapy. Back then Peter and I did not know which end was up. We were totally in shock and traumatized, yet we knew we had to be strong and figure this out for Mattie's sake. We were very scared just in general to be starting chemotherapy, but there was something quite intimidating to starting something so toxic for the first time at night. Like 10pm to be specific! Everything seems so much more daunting and out of your control at that hour! One has to wonder why a hospital chooses to begin chemo administration for the first time at 10pm, but that is another story! Any case as we were awaiting this horrible hour to approach, our nurse told us about a musical duo of volunteers who was out in the hallway and who wanted to come into the room and entertain Mattie. At first I was going to turn them away, but she convinced us to give them a try and to allow music into our room. Thankfully she did because it was the best decision we made that night and clearly into the future.
Jerry and Nancy have different skill sets, but compliment each other beautifully.
Jerry plays the keyboard and Nancy sings. But it goes beyond that. They verbally engage their patients and families, they get to know about their lives, and on that first night they were with us, I felt for a brief period of time that I was transported out of the pediatric intensive care unit. We forgot about cancer and were able to enjoy our time singing as a family. It gave me a sense of peace and security that perhaps we were going to be okay, at least for that night.
After that first night encounter, we would see Jerry and Nancy practically every week at the hospital. Remember Mattie's treatment was all in-patient and over a 14 month period. So we practically lived at Georgetown Hospital. When you see someone every week, you start to get to know each other quite well and Jerry and I began to exchange emails. We would check in with each other especially about the "name that tune" game that he and Nancy would play with Mattie. Jerry wanted to make sure that whatever tunes he would play on the keyboard that Mattie would be able to identify them easily! So literally Jerry and I would have sidebar emails about what tunes he should play that would engage Mattie and make him want to participate during their visits! In my perspective when you think about this, that truly went above and beyond the call of duty of any volunteer.
Mattie truly had a great deal of trouble relating to people, other than Peter and me as his disease progressed. His treatments left him with profound mental health issues that no adult should face, much less a seven year old child. But for the longest time music did make Mattie happy and he did enjoy visits from Jerry and Nancy. For which I will forever be grateful to them! Their visits perked me up too because Jerry and I happen to love show tunes and we would get a few of those in on the side!
Last night's dinner seemed to have flown by. I had the opportunity to relive some memories with Jerry and Nancy and also laugh! I can't remember when I have laughed so hard about all sorts of things. We even had our server, who looked like a young Whoopi Goldberg, in on the action! At one point she said she wanted to sit down and join us because we were the "fun" table! If she only knew the reality!!!!!!!!
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