Saturday, November 5, 2022

Saturday, November 5, 2022

Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2008. Mattie was 4 months into treatment and by that time all of his psychosocial team knew he loved roaches. They helped Mattie print out giant roaches from the clinic's computers. As you can see Mattie was impish here and was thrilled to hold up this print out to show it to me. Mattie knew I strongly dislike bugs. I can't tell you what a life saver this art area was in the clinic. There was always something happening there which was why Mattie ironically never refused to go to the hospital. His art therapists and child life specialist made a horrible situation seem much more manageable. 

Quote of the day: Grief can destroy you — or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. ~ Dean Koontz

I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard disturbing news. A person died right where we used to live in Washington, DC. It is unclear if the victim was shot there or that he walked there and died. All I know is this particular area was my stomping ground. I walked Sunny in this patch of grass daily! I just am so saddened to see what is happening to Washington, DC and the neighborhood I was so fond of. If interested, click here to see the article on this shooting. 

When I get up in the morning, I literally move from one task to the next, to the next, and so on. Because I have so much to accomplish, I can get rigid in my schedule and I don't like it interrupted. While making breakfast this morning (before running back upstairs to wake my dad and get him washed and dressed), Peter came inside from the backyard and told me to stop for two minutes and come outside. 

I admit, I was flustered, but I went. First of which the weather, even in the morning, felt just like spring. It made me feel good to be outside. But hanging on our fence was this green guy, a praying mantis. It was definitely worth the trip outside and if Peter did not pull me outside, I would have missed this moment. 

Later today we drove my parents to Rockville, Maryland to dine at a restaurant that we go to weekly. We make the drive because my dad gets along very well with one of the servers. But this is the kind of traffic we deal with every Friday and Saturday. It is very stressful, on top of our already stressful existence. 

When we got home, more boxes awaited us. The Fall Item Drive has been a solid success this year. Next week, I will start culling through boxes and organize them for deliveries to hospitals.