Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2009. Mattie was home between hospital visits. That day, Whitney came over to spend some time with Mattie. We met Whitney at the hospital, as she was one of Mattie's favorite child life interns. Mattie clicked with Whitney from the moment he met her, and I was grateful she was willing to come over to our home and play with Mattie. By that point in Mattie's treatment, Peter and I were both exhausted. As treatment left Mattie agitated and needing little to no sleep. Which meant that we were filling a nurse, playmate, and parent role 24/7.
Quote of the day: That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. ~ Neil Armstrong
As this week commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, there is a lot of coverage on TV. Last night we watched a show entitled, The Armstrong Tapes, on the NatGeo channel. The show gave the audience a 60 minute glimpse into the life of Neil Armstrong. I am always fascinated to learn about the person behind any achievement. As it comes to traveling to the moon and landing on it, I think it took a certain personality type to say good-bye to one's family and be willing to do something no one ever had before. To many of us this would be deemed a great sacrifice he made in order to advance science, to unite the Country, and to claim the USA as being the first to land on the moon.
What caught my attention about Armstrong was that he had a daughter named Karen, who was diagnosed with brain cancer. She died in 1962, and a few months later he joined the NASA Astronaut Corps. Given that I have the insight on childhood cancer loss, hearing how Armstrong and his wife coped with Karen's death intrigued me. Or as the recording of his wife indicated..... they never talked about Karen as a couple and she really did not know how he felt about Karen's death. One could say that Neil Armstrong was an engineer and therefore focusing on his feelings and emotions was not second nature to him. Perhaps, but in all honesty I would say that it was his incredible focus, skill, and passion to design machines to fly that enabled him to accomplish things only most of us can dream of. I do not believe that Armstrong was cold and unfeeling, especially as it related to the death of his daughter. Instead, I would like to imagine that he chose to sign up to be part of the space program as his own way to coping with child loss. As I have learned the only way to survive the long term grief that comes from the death of a child is through diversions or distractions. Of course flying to the moon isn't your everyday distraction I realize. But then again Neil Armstrong wasn't just any man.
I came across an article below that addressed the movie "First Man." Which is about Neil Armstrong. The article discusses how the movie takes liberal license and therefore portrays Armstrong as a sentimental man who brought memorial items (of Karen's) to the moon such as a bracelet and released this bracelet into space to honor Karen's memory. I get it! Sounds lovely but in all reality this is a Hollywood spin! A spin that is just ridiculous! A spin that clearly doesn't understand the depth of child loss.
I do think that when a parent loses a child to cancer, we get good at compartimentalizing our lives. In fact, to some extent this is necessary otherwise we may never function. Which is why I know that there would be NO way that Armstrong would have the emotional where with all to get into a lunar module land on the moon and then step out onto the moon and begin to acknowledge his daughter's death. He couldn't have let his mind or heart go there because then his mission would never have been accomplished. I view him as a man who did not want to mix his personal life with his professional world. Yet of course, I also could understood his first wife's frustration and sadness and why their marriage ended in divorce.
At the end of the day, I am glad I saw this show and I had the opportunity to learn more about the person behind Neil Armstrong. I think it makes us understand that he had human frailties just like the rest of us. Yet perhaps because he suffered the greatest loss a parent can experience, he was able to risk his own life to go into space and land on the moon. An achievement that the world will be talking about into eternity.
First Man’ shows Neil Armstrong mourning his daughter on the moon. But did that really happen?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2018/10/12/first-man-shows-neil-armstrong-mourning-his-daughter-moon-did-that-really-happen/?utm_term=.4e747f85af09
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