Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2008, our last Christmas with Mattie. It was a very hard holiday being home, away from our support system in the hospital. Mattie was miserable, dealing with pain, and battling depression, anxiety, and medical trauma. It truly was beyond overwhelming for Peter and me. Much too hard to even describe, as we were living minute by minute on the edge. For just a short moment in time that day, we were able to play around with Mattie and get him to smile. But the good humor and lightness you see in this photo were short lived.
Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.
- Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 54,859,966
- Number of people who died from the virus: 825,816
Peter and I spent about five hours today dismantling Christmas all over the house. Including taking apart the Christmas tree. Now every ornament is safely away. I give myself credit because for over ten years our items were packed up and stored in our townhouse closets. This year we unearthed them and to my surprise nothing was broken. To me that is remarkable!
But given that we haven't decorated since 2007, I had forgotten how horrible Christmas clean up is! There were pine needles everywhere and somehow putting stuff away was far more difficult that setting up and decorating.
Since Peter will be traveling for the next two weeks, I knew we had to address this today because there is no way I would want to tackle this alone and balance my daily routine. I would say that my daily routine is challenging. Not so much because of any one task. The stressful part for me is that my parents do not have a network of friends here, they do not have a routine, and they know nothing that is around them. Therefore, it isn't like I can do something and they will have something else to occupy them. I am it and that alone is daunting.
Given my dad's existence, he has little to no energy, therefore doing anything with him is limited. He would much prefer NOT moving all day long and sleeping, if we let him. Which we do not do! Even if my mom would want to go out and do something, she really can't. Because my parents have a togetherness philosophy, in which everything is done together. My dad doesn't like my mom leaving the house without him and he certainly doesn't want her driving. I could go on, but negotiating all of this is difficult and despite my best efforts so far, I haven't found much time to do any work much less anything for myself.
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