Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2002. I think this says it all..... Mattie loved eating certain foods by that point and got very animated while eating. Of course I would say that eating did not come naturally to Mattie, but with encouragement and a lot of fun and games, the food went down.
Quote of the day: You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it. ~ Victor Hugo
Everything around us in Washington, DC today came to an absolute standstill. I can't recall my neighborhood in such a lock down mode. EVER! There were police and secret service everywhere. Our street was CLOSED to vehicles, Rock Creek Parkway was closed, and literally we had a DC police car sitting in front of our garage preventing people from driving in or out! Security for President George H.W. Bush's funeral was significant. This went on for hours and I guess what surprised me is I never thought we would be impacted as we don't live close to the National Cathedral. Nonetheless, whether one watched the funeral or not, if you lived in DC, you knew today was a solemn day. Federal workers were given the day off, and traffic was non-existent, almost holiday like.
I am not sure I am so much into politics, as I am into how people live their lives. Listening to the special bond between George and Barbara Bush, I have to say that has moved me and it makes the recognition of the loss more significant to me. Certainly I know they were politicians, but to their family, they were everything. A death changes a family forever. Throughout the week, I have heard reflections from commentators about President Bush's life and when I hear about his devotion to his family and the Country, it makes me sad that we are saying good-bye to such a special generation.
Instead of writing a memoir, Bush sent letters and kept a diary from the age of 18, where he laid down his thoughts about everything from family and love to life and aging. With his passing, Bush’s presidential library released excerpts from his letters and diaries as a tribute to his life and legacy. In the first of the series, Bush wrote in a letter to his children, dated September 1998, about aging: “Last year there was only a tiny sense of time left, of sand running through the glass.” Bush continued: “I want to put this aging on hold for a while now. I don’t expect to be on the A-team anymore, but I want to play golf with you and I want to fish or throw shoes and I want to rejoice in your victories and I want to be there for you if you get a bad bounce in life and no doubt you will for the seas do indeed get rough.”
Beautifully stated and in my perspective he was a man clearly in love with his children. I had the opportunity to watch the military ceremony on the tarmac of Andrews Air Force Base. It was truly meaningful, symbolic, well orchestrated, and captures the tradition of our Country.
I understand the coverage of this event and I also understand the magnitude of the loss, and the need to pay respect to a man who served our Country. I just pause whenever I see a funeral of this magnitude because to every mother who loses a child to cancer, there is no fanfare. No media coverage, no appreciation of the loss throughout our nation. I am no way equating the two things, but I am simply acknowledging that when you lose a loved, the world seems to stop, and we expect it to stop for everyone else around us. Yet it doesn't. One commonality however, whether mourning the loss of a president or the passing of a child, is the forever loss that the family will experience.
1 comment:
Vicki, I don’t visit your blog nearly as much as I would like. I am trying to get back more regularly because I find your thoughts so beautifully & well said. I love your quotes, often writing them down in whichever notebook, I am writing. Most of all I love your picture of Mattie. Explaining where you were, the activity, or time of year has given me the opportunity to know Mattie, at least a little. Thank you for this gift.
Your thoughts on President Bush were beautiful. I thought I knew a lot about him, his family devotion but it turns out watching his funeral, I had no idea the depth of his love. I always knew that his daughter Robin died of leukemia at 3 but I did not know, they took her to New York to find other options to prolong her life with them. Their Texas Drs. had said take her home, enjoy her, the time is short & they did not listen.
I was so glad to hear how they fought for more time & they found it. They also as a family learned about Forever Loss.
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