Friday, November 25, 2011

Friday, November 25, 2011

Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2008 in Mattie's bedroom. Based on Mattie's physical stance, I can tell that his first surgery was completed on his right arm, but his other limbs were intact and therefore his second major surgery hadn't occurred yet. In our home, Peter and Mattie developed a tradition. They would both decorate our balcony and front yard space with Christmas lights the day after Thanksgiving. This was a big deal to them, something they planned weeks before Thanksgiving. In fact, each November, Mattie would pick out another Christmas light of his choice to add to the display. In November of 2008, Mattie selected a dog that looked like Scooby Doo! Their light display was always the talk of our complex. Mainly because they not only decorated our space, but a good part of the commons area. There were all sorts of lights and many of them moved and were animated. Their light show made people happy. Neighbors would take photos of the lights, come out and admire them at night, and whenever they saw Peter or Mattie they would thank them for brightening up their holidays. Though Mattie is no longer with us, Peter keeps up the tradition of outdoor lights the day after Thanksgiving. The display is NO longer ornament, dramatic, or bold. But instead a simple display which I imagine (since Peter and I do not talk about this!) is a symbolic gesture of the beautiful bond between a father and a son.

Quote of the day: Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Today was a day filled with various challenges. We decided to make a mini Thanksgiving meal for ourselves, and instead of a turkey, we baked cornish hens. I prepped all the food in the morning, and as I began cleaning up, I realized my kitchen sink was not happy. In fact, it was backing up and began to look like a fountain with all sorts of things spraying out of it. The beauty of living in our complex is that getting help is easy and quick. We have lived here long enough that we know the management and everyone who works the front desk. These individuals knew Mattie when he was a baby, watched him grow up, and helped us in enormous ways when he was sick and dying. Whenever I have a problem, someone is there to help me within minutes. You almost can't put a price of this kind of professionalism. 

As the sink was backing up, Peter was getting annoyed and upset, and suggested that I threw something down the sink to cause this back up. Needless to say, I did not take that well, and went upstairs and closed the door to our bedroom and worked there the rest of the day. Again, stepping back from this interchange, I know that the frustration was not really with the sink, but the sink was a safer place to put one's sadness. These are the many things you learn when combating grief with a spouse, we sometimes take our feelings out on the other one, many times unknowingly.

Within minutes of our call to the front desk of our complex, John, one of our maintenance men showed up. Peter got to talking with John and asked him how long he worked for our complex. John looked up at Peter and said, that he knew Mattie! That caught Peter off guard, but John replayed a story of his encounter with Mattie. John used to have longer hair, and Mattie told him that he looked just like Manny Ramirez (a former Red Sox left fielder). It was at that point that John and Mattie realized they had something in common, they were both Red Sox fans. Here is another example in which Mattie touched someone's life, just with a simple conversation. Needless to say, John worked HOURS in our home today, and as I suspected the issue wasn't with us. It was with a pipe four floors down.

Later in the day, I went to visit Ann's mother, Mary. Mary was aware of the fact that it is Thanksgiving, and I asked her what she wanted me to bring her today. Her request for the day was turkey. Naturally since I did not cook yesterday I had NO turkey, but I wasn't coming empty handed. I know all too well that when you live in an institution, the little things can really perk you up. So I made it my business to honor that request. This morning I made Mary mashed potatoes and then I stopped by Tina's house and picked up the rest of the goodies. Tina gave me turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes for Mary. Between the two of us, we met Mary's request and made her happy. In essence I feel that we operationalized Longfellow's quote today, because we gave what we had and to Mary it made a difference.

Before Mary had her dinner, I brought the Washington Post with me and read her two Thanksgiving Day stories from it. One was about a family from El Salvador who shared their first Thanksgiving as a family all together in the United States, and the second story was about having Thanksgiving in Iraq, and the challenges of tracking down turkey for a traditional meal. Both stories highlighted the importance of the human connection, discussed the symbolism of the turkey at this time of year at our family feasts, and also reflected upon the importance of being thankful. Though Mary's eyes were closed as I was reading, I continued on. After each article, I paused and recapped the article and discussed my feelings about the content. When I was done with both articles and was putting away the papers and preparing her dinner, Mary piped up and said..... "those were very good stories, thank you for reading them to me." The beauty of Mary, and really anyone with a neurological disorder, is that we can not assume things aren't being processed and listened to, what I find is Mary takes everything in, but can't always verbalize responses. Today's delayed response confirmed my feelings, which will further motivate me to bring in articles that I think will be of interest to her.


When I came home tonight, I was greeted by Peter's lights. Here is the first set he put on our deck.

When I entered our home, I could see the lights Peter hung on our balcony. Do take notice that in front of our living room picture window, there are MANY trees. These are all our outdoor trees that are inside now for the winter. I told Peter tonight, after I saw all the lights, that Mattie would have been proud of him for remembering.