Sunday, March 23, 2025

Sunday, March 23, 2025

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2004. Mattie was almost two years old! Mattie loved behind outside. He truly did not care about the weather! Since this was where he wanted to spend his time, I learned to manage through rain, snow, freezing temperatures, and summer heat. Mattie's facial expression here said it all! He was signaling to me he was ready to go out and we wanted to know what on earth was taking me so long to get my coat on!

Quote of the day: If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Everyday, I get photo memories sent to me in my email box. This was today's! It was taken on March 23, 2013. By that point, Mattie had been gone from our lives for four years. Slowly but surely we began to transform our townhouse in the city. To clean out the piles of things that were everywhere. In the process we decided to paint every room. The process of cleaning out is always hard to start, but once I get started, I find that I become motivated by the changes I see. 

Through the course of my marriage, we did many things for ourselves like painting, gardening, replacing the kitchen floor and the list goes on. Hard work and work in general is not something I have ever shied away from. 

My mom is still coughing and exhausted. Though we usually go out on Saturday and Sunday, we went no where this weekend. My mom thinks she can go out, but literally just getting up in the morning and having breakfast, is exhausting for her. So until I see an improvement in her, she is going nowhere. Since we were stuck at home, it gave me the perfect opportunity to get more done. 

As of tonight, I have packed up everything that doesn't belong to me, and have stationed things in three locations. I have been at this for two weeks so far. Today, I had to address these beds. The frames were created by my mother-in-law's father. One frame was for her when she was a child and the other was for her sister. When her sister died, we received both frames. In fact, Mattie slept on these beds, so these frames have seen many generations! I stripped these beds today and laundered everything on top of them.

You can see Mattie put stickers on the bed frame. When he was well and would visit his pediatrician, she always gave him a sticker at the end of his medical appointment. Mattie placed many of his stickers on his bed! It is hard to believe that the stickers remain, but the boy is gone!

Today while packing things up, I felt like I was having a Muriel's Wedding (1994, movie) moment. I put the clip of what I am talking about below, so you know what I am talking about. Look at minute 3! In the movie, she is leaving Porpoise Spit (her town), and as the taxi drives away, she screams out the window, saying goodbye to things like.... goodbye mall, goodbye ocean, etc! 

It is hard to say goodbye to items that have been a part of my life for decades. My life and my husband's life were intertwined for 35 years. No small amount of time. Therefore, it takes great inner strength to comb through things and say goodbye to them and what they symbolized. As with everything I did in my entire marriage, this task was no different. I faced it in a kind, loving, and respectful manner. All things were organized, labeled, and packed. 

Muriel's Wedding, check out minute 3:

I would like to say my day ended with packing. NOPE! I went outside today to attack the shed. I did the first big clean out today. This is after Richard, the raccoon guy, shoveled out raccoon feces, sprayed a disinfectant mist all over the shed, and removed bigger items that were decimated. Even with all of Richard's work, I was at it for about three hours today. I filled a whole garbage bin with junk and debris. We have many storage bins in the shed. I dragged every one of them out, hosed them off and cleaned them with Clorox. It will take many more passes, but a good portion of all the feces and debris are now gone. It was not a fun job, but wow................. I can actually walk into and use the shed!