Tonight's picture was taken on Halloween of 2008. This was our last Halloween with Mattie. I will never forget this costume. Mattie was tentative about celebrating Halloween and even wearing a costume. He had just had his first limb salvaging surgery two weeks before and his right arm was still bandaged. Mattie was in pain and moved gingerly with his arm. However, Mattie's child life specialist and art therapists had a solution. They invited Mattie to come into clinic and pick a costume a day before the other children. The reason this was crucial was because Mattie had trouble moving around in crowds with his arm. He was frightened that someone would bang up against his arm and he was also self conscious about looking different and not finding a costume that would work for him. So exploring the costumes in a room without other children was an excellent plan. Mattie gravitated to the mummy costume as soon as he saw it, because in this costume you really couldn't tell that his right arm wasn't usable. It just seemed wrapped up as part of the costume. This photo was taken in the hospital elevator, while Mattie was trick or treating around the hospital!
Quote of the day: Hold on, man. We don't go anywhere with "scary," "spooky," "haunted," or "forbidden" in the title. ~ From Scooby-Doo
For as long as we have lived in our complex in DC, no one has trick or treated! There are children who live here, but I am sure they go to the homes of friends instead. I know that is what we used to do with Mattie. We wanted Mattie to have the suburban experience of what it was like to walk around in a neighborhood on sidewalks and get candy with friends. I know Mattie did enjoy that, but now that Mattie is gone, Halloween seems to also have disappeared for us. Friends no longer invite us over and I imagine the reasoning is that seeing other children trick or treating will make us upset. Perhaps! I think it is hard to exist in a world in which you once had a child and then by no fault of your own, become childless. People don't know how to interact with you and what happens is you land up in isolation. If on the rare occasion you are included, you can sense that your presence makes others uncomfortable or people don't necessarily care for your reactions to things. Which of course leads to further isolation. I wish I could say this is just a Vicki/Peter issue. But it isn't.
After my biopsy yesterday, I had a tough night of sleep and continue to be in pain. Every movement seems to hurt. I could have easily just sat on the couch all day. But I figured that wasn't going to solve anything. So with the sun shining, I decided we should go to Huntley Meadows (one of the nature preserves that I really love) and walk. It is typically tranquil and you can always see a piece of beauty on the boardwalk.
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