Saturday, March 14, 2020

Saturday, March 14, 2020

Tonight's picture was taken on March 12, 2009. Mattie was admitted to the hospital through the clinic and a friend stopped by and delivered a huge pretzel for Mattie. This was the food of choice Mattie requested and he was thrilled to receive it!


Quote of the day: That is one good thing about this world... There are always sure to be more springs. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Typically as Spring approaches everyone seems to be happier and freer. Unfortunately this is not happening this Spring as we are all enduring the Coronavirus. In reality the regular flu is just as contagious and far deadlier, yet that seems to be common place, and this virus is treated like the plague. Honestly I am just as concerned about the panic and hysteria caused by the media, because this is working people up into a frenzy.

In any case, we went to Mattie's school today to decorate his trees for his upcoming April birthday. I am scheduled to go to Los Angeles soon to help my parent's move. Therefore, I did not want to wait to decorate Mattie's tree in case plans change. 

We removed all the Christmas ornaments today and placed donut ornaments on the tree, as well as tied a new ribbon around each of Mattie's three trees. 

A close up of Mattie's Swamp White Oak tree! What you can't tell is that children and their parents were all around us. Now that kids are out of school because of the virus, you can tell families are already getting stir crazy already. Several parents came up to chat with us as their children admire our trees and how we decorate them. Sunny was a big hit with the children. 

This tree is a Yellowwood tree and it sits a few feet from the tree above. This is actually Memorial Tree #3. As #1 and #2 developed issues, so a third tree was planted. Yet this tree got hit and broke in half two years ago in a storm. With that the school planted a fourth memorial tree (the one above) at our request. 

This tree sits about 20 feet from the other two. This was the location of Mattie's original memorial tree planted in 2010. That first tree died from an oak tree bacterial blight disease. What you see now is tree #2, which is a Yellowwood. It is a struggling tree, which is why I call it Charlie Brown. Yet Charlie continues to hang on. I place ribbons on all three trees.

So in total, Mattie has three trees on the lower school campus. I refer to them as "Mattie's grove."

So I am standing near tree #2 with the gold ribbon. If you look in the distance you will see Peter in orange, two women, and Sunny. They are standing near tree #3 and #4. 

Meanwhile, I had a ladybug land on me today. I always view this as a very positive sign from Mattie. He was watching us and is with us. 

After tree decorating, we then took Sunny for a walk. Look at the glorious forsythia all abloom. Spring is happening and with that, I hope the warmer weather knocks out the coronavirus.