Tonight's picture was taken on September 24, 2008. Mattie was two months into his cancer treatment and that afternoon I took Mattie back to his preschool to play with his buddy Alex on the playground. It was after school hours and no other children were there. Mattie and Alex went to preschool together, but then went to different elementary schools. Yet they remained connected through kindergarten and beyond. As you can see from this photo, Mattie was having a good time running around and just being a child.
Quote of the day: I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers. ~ Khalil Gilbran
Last night, after I got back home from seeing the Capital Wheel light up in GOLD, all sorts of things started to go wrong. In the grand scheme of things, they aren't huge, but it was like there was one electronic crisis after the other in my home. Peter has been away on travel, so I was home trying to manage and understand the issues at hand. Which isn't my forte. First my desktop computer stopped working, then to add to that we lost all internet connectivity in our home, followed by the fact that the TVs weren't working. It wasn't a pretty picture and the final straw was I was developing a raging fever. Somehow through fever and chills, I managed through the night and today really forced myself to pull it together. Otherwise, lying around not feeling well tends to make me feel worse.
Earlier this week, I went to the grocery store and while checking out, the clerk began to talk with me about my summer and what I do on the weekends. When I explained to him that what I tend to do is usually work, he looked at me. I of course wasn't getting into what I do with the Foundation, but his response to me was that I need a real break with a lot less stress. I found this particularly enlightening, because here is a person who doesn't know me from Adam, and yet in many ways he was spot on.
One of the highlights of my day today was going to the post office. I realize that may not be the average person's thrill! However, the post office in which Mattie Miracle's PO Box is located is delightful. I literally will cross over the river from DC to come to this post office in Arlington. One of the postal employees, Darryl, has been super supportive of the Foundation's work! He helps me with my mass mailings in December and he looks out for our PO Box. In fact, Darryl even wears a Mattie Miracle awareness pin on his uniform each day, and when it is Walk season, he advertises the event right by his work cubicle. In addition to seeing Darryl today, I also picked up our Foundation's mail. I never know what I will find in our box, but today we received a letter from Wisconsin and a check for $500. FROM A PERSON WE DON'T KNOW. The letter read.... YOU ARE DOING GREAT WORK! It is amazing how five words can transform your mood and I am not sure if this person knows this, but his $500 is greatly appreciated by us, because without our contributors we can't keep doing our work and performing Mattie Miracles.
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