Monday, January 9, 2012Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2009. Mattie was on his way to the Lombardi Clinic for treatment. Next to Mattie and I was Jenny, one of Mattie's incredible art therapists. What you may not be able to tell from this picture was Mattie was in a hallway that ramped down to the Lombardi Center atrium. When Mattie was feeling in the mood, he loved going down this ramp, as if he were on a roller coaster speeding down hill. Naturally Jenny nor I ever let his wheelchair completely go from our hands, but we definitely gave him the opportunity to feel like he was in a roller coaster seat speeding down the ramp. Notice a hospital employee in the background watching our antics. With Mattie, there were a lot of antics and those who knew him appreciated that side of him. In that respect Mattie made cancer easier for us because he had many interests, a good sense of humor, and knew how to captivate the attention of others.
Quote of the day: It is well to be prepared for life as it is, but it is better to be prepared to make life better than it is. ~ Sargent Shriver
I began my day with a beautiful text message from Toni, Brandon's mom. As my faithful readers know, Brandon was Mattie's big buddy. Mattie let VERY few people into his life while he was battling cancer. In fact, I can count on one hand the friends Mattie made at the hospital who were either ill or had cancer. The list was short, it was Brandon, Jocelyn, and Maya. Mattie related to Brandon, and I deeply believe he felt Brandon understood and appreciated him. Brandon and Mattie battled cancer together and in the process we came to love him and his family. Toni and I fortunately had each other for support and both of us express ourselves passionately, so we appreciated each other right away. Toni knew Peter and I were headed back to campus today and she understands how challenging returning to the scene of the crime is. Toni gets it because she survived days and nights within the hospital and saw the horror that cancer produces in your child and within yourself. To some extent I do not think others can possibly grasp the full extent of the trauma of returning to the hospital, if you haven't lived through the process yourself. Toni wished us well today and wanted me to know the impact Mattie has made on Brandon's life! Her text message brought an immediate smile to my day and in a way we felt less alone as we journeyed back to campus.
Peter's former business school professor Bob Bies (http://explore.georgetown.edu/people/biesr/?PageTemplateID=319) invited us back to Georgetown this semester to work with his MBA students. We are their community based learning project. Which means we are their business client and as such they need to learn and hear about the Foundation and then utilize their knowledge to help us develop strategies that will enable us to grow more productively and creatively.
Many of you many recall we worked with Bob's undergraduates in the Fall. What I love about Bob's teaching style is he operationalizes Shriver's quote. He challenges students "to make life better than it is." Throughout the Fall semester, Peter and I wondered whether we were making an impact on the young minds we interacted with in Bob's class. Today, Bob handed us copies of his undergraduate students' process papers. Each student in the class wrote a one to two page paper about their experience interacting with us and working for Mattie Miracle. I haven't read through them all, but what I am reading is amazing. If we had any doubt whether we impacted them or got our message across, these papers squelch any of these concerns. Over the course of this week, I will share with you some of the writings we received today. This is definitely one of the aspects of teaching I miss. I always learned deeply from my students.
I snapped a picture of Peter today presenting to the Imagination and Creativity class. There were 46 students in the class, an ironic number, since 46 children a day are diagnosed with cancer. A message we closed our lecture with, because we wanted them to know they were lucky that they were healthy and able to learn, because while this was happening, children are being told they have cancer. It is profound to think that if we congregated all the children diagnosed with cancer today, this would fill their 46 seats in this classroom! Perhaps I was just more observant or the dynamics in today's class were different. But what the undergraduates said to us in words, I could see on the faces and non-verbals of the MBA students before us. Like the undergraduate students, the MBA students also asked good questions and were engaged, but I sensed that our story was overwhelming for them to hear. I shall see if I am right when I read their reflection papers at the end of the semester, but I told Peter at dinner that I read the faces and some were just overwhelmed. I actually do not feel badly about that, mainly because when students are overwhelmed great progress can be made. To some extent cancer and the death of a child should make them feel uneasy and if it did not then I would have thought we did not do our jobs today. Childhood cancer needs to evoke emotion, because it is through this emotion that passion for change and the conviction to think differently and innovatively are inspired.
Just like last semester, we went through a PowerPoint slide presentation with the students and also showed them a "remember me" video of Mattie which is posted to this blog. The video instantly moved many of the students and some of them were crying and sniffling. In fact, it takes super human strength for Peter and I to be in the same room with this video and then be asked to speak as soon as the lights come back on. In our PowerPoint presentation there is a slide that addresses the psychosocial impact of cancer. However, before discussing the content of that slide, I had the students pause and reflect on how their lives would change if I told each and every one of them that they were diagnosed with osteosarcoma today. With the undergraduates I basically went through this visualization exercise with them and gave them the responses. Today I paused and asked the class to generate the responses for themselves. I got about four of five students who bravely stated their feelings and each one was very profound and right on target. For example, the first student to respond said to me if he were diagnosed he would be upset about how his life was going to change. That he wouldn't be able to come to class and better yet that getting an MBA may not even be a priority any more. Bravo! Indeed, they got it right away, because cancer demolishes plans and one's hope for the future. Instead, the only thing that matters during the battle are life and death decisions and factors.
As we finished class today, several students came up to talk with us. However, we all immediately noticed it was snowing. Bob took that as another sign from Mattie, and he maybe right. This was what things looked like as we were driving home!I would like to end tonight's posting with two paragraphs from an undergraduate reflection paper. It is my hope that as I continue to share these comments, you will see the effect we had on these students. This male student wrote, "In high school, I volunteered at Ronald McDonald House charities. There, I frequently met families of pediatric cancer patients. Going into this consultant project with the Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation, I expected Vicki and Peter's story to be similar to the ones I had heard in the past. I could not have been more wrong. I was completely blown away by their emotion as well as their can-do attitude. It must have been extremely tough for them to start a Foundation that remembers Mattie's life and also looks to raise money for the cause for Mattie's death. A big reason why I was so excited and passionate about working with my team on this project was because I felt an emotional connection. Knowing that my work was benefiting the lives of others in a very tangible way not only made me want to help out more, but also encouraged me to tell my friends and family about the Mattie Miracle cause."
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