Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Tuesday, April 4, 2023 -- Mattie died 705 weeks ago today.

Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2004. This was at Mattie's second birthday party. The theme that year was trains, as Mattie was in love with all things locomotive! My parents were in town and my mom snapped this photo of us. We have very few photos of us altogether, which is why this one is special to me. 

Quote of the day: We cannot think our way out of grief. We must feel our way out of grief. ~ Angie Corbett-Kuiper

Last night I debated.... do I visit Mattie's tree today on his 21st birthday or pass this year because of all I am juggling? In the end, I chose to do what I wanted to do, despite having my parents in tow. 

To prepare for today's visit, I wanted to bring some ribbons and ornaments to 

decorate Mattie's tree. But I had none in my Mattie box. However, while searching for ornaments in my box in the basement, look what I found??! Some of you may remember that Mattie's model magic birthday cake has been missing for some time now. I honestly have no idea where it was. Turns out Peter must have moved it when my parents moved in during December of 2021.

I think it was not happenstance that I found this cake the night before Mattie's 21st birthday. It was meant to be. Mattie designed this cake for Peter in the hospital, to celebrate Peter's birthday. It is one of Mattie's legacy items that I cherish and I was upset that it went missing. 

My cut ribbons that I hot glued together at 11pm. 

When we arrived at Mattie's school today, there were kids everywhere. All over the playground. It was a beautiful spring day and kids came up to Peter and asked about the tree and what we were doing. Frankly I was in no mood to entertain them or their questions. 

Mattie's white swamp oak! You may see the spots of orange on the bare tree. I am happy we placed 21 awareness ribbons on it and cleaned the tree up from Christmas time. 

A close up of the ribbons!

One of the ornaments I just love and leave on the tree. It says, Love you to the moon and back! One of my favorite lines I used to say to Mattie. 

In the midst of all of this, my mom and I got into an argument today about my dad's physical therapist. My mom had convinced herself that the therapist was coming on Friday instead of Thursday. She even said that the therapist wrote down the dates indicating when she was coming to work with my dad. Both of these things are not true. The therapist and I keep the schedule and I had confirmed with her on Saturday that she was coming on Thursday. But my mom was so aggressive and hostile about it, I literally text messaged the therapist today to see if I was missing something. Even after confirming I was correct, my mom couldn't accept it and said the therapist was lying to me. I literally lost it and confronted my mom about her memory issues and her manufacturing of information. 

After the tree visit, we took my parents out to lunch. When I returned home our next door neighbor and her children came over and delivered us a handmade card and 21 orange lilies in memory of Mattie. One of my neighbor's children is about Mattie's age and he practically visits me every afternoon when he comes home from school. Apparently he asked his mom about Mattie and it is interesting to see a six year old grappling to understand why a 7 year old could die. I haven't figured it out either, but over the years I have found a way to manage through days like today. I am sure to the average person, I may look unemotional about Mattie's loss, but how I look and how I feel are not always well lined up.