Friday, May 8, 2015

Friday, May 8, 2015

Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2006 at Sesame Place in Pennsylvania. The park is perfect for the child who loves Sesame Street. Which was right up Mattie's alley. He loved Elmo back then and seeing Elmo characters walking around the park brought a smile to his face. There were parades, all sorts of activities, and water adventures. Which was what Mattie gravitated to that day!

Quote of the day: Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you. ~ Mother Teresa

Peter and I attended the Association of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses Conference (Metro NY, Long Island, & New Jersey Chapters) today. We sat through sessions from 8am until 3pm, when our session began. 


There were also vendors at the conference. I fell in love with one who was a jeweler. She used to be a podiatrist, but then she became a mom and started making jewelry. Her jewelry is beautiful. I bought a moon shaped pendant today, and on it was written... I love you to the moon and back. This is exactly what Mattie and I used to say to each other. In addition, dangling from the moon was the letter M. Why? It turns out the artist has children that all have names that start with the letter M. It works for me, because to me that M is for Mattie!

Peter snapped a photo of the conference room within the Baruch College. 

We delivered a 90 minute presentation today that included 50 power point slides. Here is a copy of the agenda we covered. I opened up the session with a 15 minute overview of "who was Mattie Brown." This included showing a four minute video of Mattie.

However before I did that I asked for a show of hands in the audience of the number of mothers present in the room. The reason I asked this was because 98.9% of the room was comprised of women. So my hunch was a majority of them were going to be moms, and I was correct. I wanted to appeal to these women NOT only as professionals but as women who had children. Because I wanted them to understand that Peter and I created a foundation because of Mattie, his cancer battle, the love we have for him and our desire to keep his memory alive. As I told them today, 13 years ago I had a son named Mattie and when any woman has a child, the last thing she thinks of is.... my child is going to get cancer and worse die. It was my hope that one day if I was going to be before a large audience of people talking about Mattie, it would be for one of his great accomplishments. Not due to his battle with cancer and death. Yet because of his death, as his mom I feel compelled to keep his memory alive and that is one of my life's mission.  

Despite the fact that Peter and I have been working around the clock, we feel it is important to spread the Foundation message. Especially as it relates to our National standards project. So even though this conference is a week before the Walk, we made the huge effort to come to New York. 

My life time friend Karen and her mom attended our session and Karen snapped a photo of us with several members of the conference planning committee.... Jeanne Greenfield, Debbie Giugliano, and Cara Giannillo.

Peter and I met all three of these wonderful women last year in Columbus, Ohio at the APHOES conference (Association of Pediatric Hematology Oncology Educational Specialists). It was within this conference that Debbie mentioned today's speaking engagement to me. 

After the conference, we went out to a lovely dinner with Karen and her mom Naomi! We had wonderful conversation, food, and had a chance to reconnect. I am glad we were able to do that since they were the highlight of coming to New York. For me New York is not what it once was, and I used to love the city. Now I find it an extremely over crowded city, challenging to navigate given the attitudes of some of the people, and the sights on the streets are not only questionable but down right insulting to one's moral fiber.  

This was Times Square
this evening. It was a sea of people. But it isn't just Times Square that is like this, the sidewalks are packed throughout the city. If you stop moving, you are going to run over. 

I have lived in a city for many years now, from Boston to Washington, DC. But these are very different cities from New York. New York has it advantages for sure and of course I am not ever going to knock it for its creativity and culture. But I have been transformed by cancer and this transformation has left me needing more open spaces, tranquility, and peace in order to survive. 

The lights of Times Square

People and lights






















I first downloaded a photo of the "topless painted women" in the middle of Times Square and posted it to the blog. But I actually find them so offensive, that I removed the photo, and now just have a link to them through a NY Post article. I couldn't get over my eyes tonight while walking through Times Square. Peter was busy taking photos of the buildings and lights and while he was doing this, I of course am intrigued by people so I was scanning the streets. I immediately saw painted American Flag women as well as violent costume characters (that is what they are called) roaming the streets. They all are there hustling people to pose with them for photos and to make money. Honestly some people were posing their children next to these topless women and snapping photos! I came back to the hotel beyond disturbed, perplexed, and just agitated. 

http://nypost.com/2015/04/22/topless-women-posing-with-underage-kids-in-times-square/