Sunday, May 31, 2020

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2002. Mattie was a month old, and I remember back then I was taking several photos of him a day, as I was looking to capture the "perfect" photo for a birth announcement. I did not select this photo, but what I do love about this one, was it illustrated Mattie's alertness and  curiosity.

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins. 

• number of people who were diagnosed with the virus: 1,786,030
• number of people who died from the virus: 104,232

Tomorrow will be June 1, and believe it or not, my closet is still featuring winter clothes. With being locked down with the Coronavirus, I literally never wore most of my winter clothes this year. My daily attire consisted of leggings and sweat suit material things. Not unlike my year when Mattie had cancer and we were living in the hospital. But with warmer weather, I needed the time to switch my closet over to spring. While I did that today, Peter took Sunny out for a walk on the National Mall. 

Peter sent me some photos of Sunny! Given Sunny's age and fur coat, we have to take water and his travel bowl with us on walks. With the heat, Sunny needs periodic breaks to catch his breath. 

Look at my regal boy on the Mall!

As of this week, Sunny will be 8 weeks post-surgery. Today is the first time I saw Sunny's spark really return. He looked happy to be out and about and had good energy on our walks today. 

Meanwhile, here is Indie! Indie likes to take over Sunny's bed on occasion. When Sunny isn't happy with her, he will walk over to one of her cat beds, grab it in his mouth and throw it on the floor. These two keep us entertained. 



My friend's daughter graduated from MIT on Friday. I did tune into the university's virtual graduation, but I missed the actual graduation speaker. I had the opportunity to read the speech today and I included the link below. Typically graduation speeches are out of touch, can be boring, and some can be down right inappropriate. But this one truly resonated with me, which is why I posted the link below. 

MIT did a phenomenal job getting Admiral McRaven. In his speech, he defines a hero!!! I couldn't agree more and his points about courage, humility (as life always brings us down a peg or two), compassion, sacrifice, and integrity! I specifically love his insights on moral character/courage and HOW THERE IS NO work and life balance..... especially if you want to succeed and achieve something of importance. His speech resonated with me and I think this is a message that every teen and young adult needs to hear. All the valuable human qualities he highlights are what creates a person of character, a real hero. 

His ending was equally powerful, for what is happening with COVID-19 can never happen again in our country. We have to learn from this, because the long term mental health, physical, and economic consequences will far exceed the virus itself.

Retired Navy SEAL commander who led the Osama bin Laden raid tells MIT 2020 graduates: "To save the world, you will have to be men and women of great integrity."

https://www.businessinsider.com/william-mcraven-mit-navy-seal-commencement-speech-2020-5