Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2007. We took Mattie to the US Botanical Gardens to check out all the holiday decorations and toy trains, which was one of the things Mattie loved to do in December. I loved visiting the Gardens because it was like walking into a hot house when it was so cold outside. This fountain is in one of the first rooms you experience when you enter the Gardens, and it is surrounded by poinsettias and models of many of our DC landmarks made out of plants. It was always a special and memorable visit because there were so many things to see in a magical setting.
Quote of the day: The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
My Facebook friend, Tim Beck, sent me this Christmas surprise today. Tim creates works of art for a countless number of families who lost a child to cancer all across the United States. In fact, his art work unites a few of us on line, because as we respond to what Tim is posting, some of us get to chatting with each other.
When I thanked Tim for this gift today, his response intrigued me. He wanted to know why more people do not help those of us who lost a child to cancer, by posting memories, reflections and photos of our children on their own Facebook pages. He felt that with social media and technology it is easy to share thoughts and feelings and therefore the lack of time can not be an excuse! But Tim is perplexed as to why bereaved parents are the ones who always have to initiate the posting of photos? I told Tim I do not have simple answers to his question.
But what I do know about Facebook is what gets LIKES and views are HAPPY photos and news. Rarely will serious and more grave information even get noticed! You could say I am being judgmental, but the reality is I have watched and tracked this on Facebook for over a year. However, I gave Tim two explanations to his question. The first is plain and simple and that is childhood cancer is scary and it is every parent's worst nightmare. Therefore, for the most part, if one can, one tries to avoid it, unless of course it has become an un-welcomed guest on your family's doorstep. Therefore if this is a topic that makes you uncomfortable, you most certainly aren't going to write and post about it on Facebook. The second explanation is more personal. Over the years, many people have told me that they do not know how to talk to me about Mattie, or they even worry that by talking about Mattie that this will make me upset and sad. Of course the reality is there is nothing you can say to me that I haven't already heard or thought about, and frankly the only thing that will make me sad is if people forget about Mattie. It is forgetting, NOT remembering that is deeply upsetting to parents who lost a child to cancer. But to specifically answer Tim's question, I think people who know us do not post photos and memories of Mattie on their Facebook pages because for the most part they do not know how Peter and I will react to it, or how other people will react to it for that matter.
Yet as time marches on, what is very clear to me is that family and friends are needed to keep Mattie's memory alive. Others have had their own experiences with Mattie and Peter and I enjoy hearing about them. But time doesn't heal all wounds at all. That is just a platitude told to us, to try to squelch our pain and to stop conversation. The only thing time does is it impacts our memory, and our ability to remember the subtleties of Mattie, which made him the special little boy that he was. Which is why when Tim posts photo creations of Mattie on Facebook and shares them with other people, to me this helps to keep Mattie's memory alive. These photo creations also get us to reflect on the activities depicted, Mattie's character and personality, as well as our role as parents in that moment in time.
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