Tonight's picture was taken on April 1st of 2009, around the time of Mattie's 7th birthday. Friends were beginning to bring Mattie balloons and gifts to celebrate his special occasion. I will never forget the cute book Mattie was holding up because it was a musical one that we both found entertaining! If you look closely at the photo though you will notice that there were silk screens hanging from the ceiling. These were screens that Mattie and I created together. In fact the heart above Mattie's head says.... "Mommy loves Mattie!" Whatever art we created in the hospital, I usually tried to display about the room. To make the room look more child friendly rather than like a hospital and of course Mattie's IV pole was always a conversation piece! We typically had origami cranes hanging from it, but Mattie also designed a caterpillar out of a cardboard box and attached it to the pole with every admission. Needless to say, these were conversation pieces with anyone we ran into, in the hallways.
Quote of the day: One person's trauma is another's loss of innocence. ~ Jodi Picoult
When one thinks about Picoult's quote, you first may stop and pause and ask yourself.... what is she talking about? But after re-reading it and letting it sink in it does make a lot of sense. If you doubt this, then for the context of this blog let's operationalize her quote.
For the past six years I have been writing about Mattie's cancer battle and then of course the grief associated with losing a child to cancer. When Mattie was alive and with us, I shared the vivid details of the daily battle, both the medical chaos and the psychological turmoil. I tried to bring our community into our world and shared with you how our lives were changing and how Mattie's childhood was literally being shattered before our eyes. As time progressed Mattie's cancer metastasized and with that we were forced to face the fact that he was dying. We did not have a long time to grasp that reality and within days we were making decisions about how to keep him comfortable and how to help him die humanly. Which for the record did not happen! Mattie suffered a painful death, and we unfortunately are the witnesses of that five hour torture.
The multiple traumas I have and continue to write about on this blog are things that Peter and I live with, and yet in the process I have a feeling that those of you who read the blog on a regular basis would concede that your innocence (if it existed) regarding childhood cancer is gone. You know that is exists, that cancer can kill children, that it has psychological consequences on children and families, and these consequences can last a life time. Therefore Picoult's point is true..... one person's trauma is another person's loss of innocence. Sometimes as I always say..... I would prefer to be more innocent and naive.
When you think about the multiple stories we hear in a given day either from people we know in our lives or through TV, the internet, or things we read, one has to wonder...... where is the innocence? We can almost become overloaded with thoughts and feelings. Which can be difficult to contend with and manage on a good day, but when you find yourself faced with your own trauma or challenging situation, how do we process these other stories and information around us? I know for myself, the answer is... I don't! I know I am not alone in this because under high stress, dealing with intense grief from Mattie's traumatic loss, there are times I do shut out the world in order to function. That could mean that I do not watch certain types of programming, the news, etc.. There are times I can integrate this into my life and times in which I can't. The irony is when I was talking to Kevin (the man who was stationed overseas, and was my flight companion in February) he and I were on the same wave length! He and I suffered completely different traumas and yet we cope with things in a very similar manner. We just understood each other instantly as we sat next to each other on a flight to Los Angeles, mind you we had never met before. Our traumas, shed our innocence, and it was as if we were speaking the same language despite the fact that our war zones looked VERY different.
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