Saturday, November 19, 2016

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Tonight's picture was taken in September of 2008. This was the first month Mattie was in the hospital and dealing with his treatment regimen. Despite all the drastic changes in his life and how he was feeling, he still had a sense of humor. That evening Peter blew up gloves and Mattie used them like puppets and was doing a show through the window. His nurses in the hallway could see this, which I am sure surprised them because most patients in a PICU aren't up and looking to play games. But this was the incredible spirit of Mattie. 




Quote of the day: This is the true joy in life — being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. ~George Bernard Shaw

This afternoon we headed to our friend Ann's house to sort and organize more candy! I continue to be stunned over how much post-Halloween candy is out there and gets donated to us. We are now probably over 10,000 pounds of candy. We spent hours sorting bins and bags filled with candy. 

We were fortunate to have the St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School's 9th Grade Girl Scouts sorting with us tonight. They are NO strangers to this process and are excellent and efficient sorters. They actually seem to enjoy this task! To put these girls into context for you, they would have been classmates of Mattie if he were alive today. In my mind, Mattie remains 7, but in all reality he would be 14.

This is what the overall sorting station process looks like. I love Peter's expression here, as he examines and truly studies the candy before him. 

Me with the candy! It was imperative that we finished this sorting this weekend. Because on Tuesday of next week, Mattie's school is coming with a truck to pick up half of the garage worth of candy and will store it at the school. Then on Wednesday of next week, the students and faculty will have an opportunity to sort candy from four bins that contain unsorted candy. They will be doing this for two hours during their "saintsgiving" service day. After Thanksgiving, I will then drive along with the school's truck and make two big deliveries. However, because of the massive amount of candy collected this year, Peter and I are renting a UHaul truck the first week of December and making all the additional deliveries needed! So though Halloween is over, for us it is STILL going on.