Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Tuesday, April 4, 2017 -- Mattie would have been 15 years old today! 
Mattie died 394 weeks ago today. 

Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2004, right before Mattie's second birthday party. My mom snapped this photo! Ironically I do not have many photos of the three of us together, therefore this photo is very special to me. Mattie had a train themed birthday party that year. Mainly because he was in LOVE with trains, and all things with wheels. Unlike his first birthday, Mattie had a good time at his second party and understood why there were so many people gathered and having fun. At all of Mattie's parties I always planned a special book to read aloud and lots of games and activities for the children. 



Quote of the day: Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you've done will have mattered as much. ~ Lisa Wingate


It is hard to believe that Mattie was born 15 years ago. As of today, we have celebrated more birthdays without Mattie, than when he was alive. That is a challenging reality to face for any parent. How do you even acknowledge such a day!? It is a great question. The answer for us is always to be out of town, as there are no birthday parties to plan and for the most part with time people forget. Not on purpose, but it happens, yet for us, we never forget. Not just holidays and milestone moments, but everyday. Everyday, because cancer has robbed us of a future as a family each and every day. 

I posted a remembrance on Facebook today and I tried to recall all the special characteristics that describe Mattie. There are so many, but here are a few:

• bright
• curious
• engaging
• humorous
• a good friend
• loyal
• a little engineer (as he liked to disassemble his toys and put them back together)
• loved nature
• loved collecting acorns, leaves, stones, shells, pinecones, etc
• loved Legos (and could build just about any lego kit)
• loved constructing with cardboard boxes
• loved music
• loved to paint and use clay
• loved vanilla frosted donuts and vanilla ice cream
• loved bugs, especially ones that scared me
• loved anything with wheels
• loved to sing and to be sung to
• was called Mattie Moon in preschool
• always included the sun in all his creations (which is why the sun and moon remind us of Mattie)
• and the list goes on....................................

Peter and I went to Butterfly World today. It opened in 1988, and is the largest butterfly park in the world, and the first park of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. The facility houses around 5000 live butterflies.

Butterfly World is a park we ventured to many times with Mattie and my parents. I am not sure what is more captivating the butterflies, the flowers, or the piped in classical music. All I know is the three combined make it a heavenly, peaceful, and moving experience. You are greeted at the entrance to the park with music and these beautiful bougainvillea. 

Once inside the butterfly house, it looks like this. You are able to freely move about while thousands of butterflies are floating about. The whole thing is screened in to protect the butterflies. But imagine strolling through this and listening to music that evokes feelings that transport you to a simpler existence for two hours. 

Peter snapped some wonderful photos of butterflies, flowers, and birds we saw along our journey.

Another beauty. Butterfly World does a good job educating its visitors about all stages of the metamorphosis process, which is most likely why a school group was touring the facility today. 

Two white monarch butterflies. 

This butterfly is called a piano key, maybe because of its black and white stripes at its base. 

 This is a Gouldian Finch from Australia. 

This cutie was traveling around with a feather in his beak. Helping to build a nest.  

To me these are the "triplets!" They hung out and flew around together. 

I had a butterfly visitation today. 

Amazing colors, no? What I love about this butterfly is that you can really see how it evolved from a caterpillar. Look at its body!

A passion flower. The park is filled with incredibly unique and colorful flowers, vines, and trees. 


This flower has a woody vine that has unusual blossoms. Roman Catholic priests of the late 1500's named it for the Passion (suffering and death) of Jesus Christ. They believed that several parts of the plant, including the petals, rays, and sepals, symbolized features of the Passion.

On Mattie's visits to Butterfly World, he and Peter always fed the lorikeets. These birds are medium sized arboreal parrots characterized by their specialized brush-tipped tongues for feeding on nectar of various blossoms and soft fruits, preferably berries.

In Mattie's memory, Peter fed the Lorikeets today. Something Mattie would have approved of!

Peter even jumped on the bouncing suspension bridge. Another Mattie favorite!

On our way back to the hotel, I got a caramel sundae from McDonald's. Another Mattie favorite. Mattie HATED chocolate, and loved vanilla ice cream and caramel.