Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2002. Mattie was six months old and to me his facial expression says it ALL! Mattie strongly disliked being strapped down to anything, including his stroller. He did not like being confined at all and actually preferred being carried or even walking with me supporting his arms. Mattie wanted to move past the crawling and toddling phase right to walking. It frustrated him that he couldn't do this.
Quote of the day: We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone. ~ Dr. Loretta Scott
Peter is still not feeling great, and I am exhausted. Yet we moved past these feelings today and kept plugging away. Of course the question is how much longer can we endure this pace? I know for me the answer is NOT much longer! I am pulling in 16 hour or more days and managing everything from the administrative aspects of the Foundation to a great deal of the Walk logistics. Peter took today and tomorrow off from work, and I am glad he did, because we both needed to go at it today to make our Sunday deadline. We have family coming into town Friday and Saturday, so basically from my perspective things need to be solidified by tomorrow afternoon!
The highlight of my day today was receiving a link to the article that Amber Healy wrote for the Connections Newspaper about Mattie Miracle and the Walk. The title of the article was..... Miracles Continue in Mattie's Memory. Some of you may recall that I had a phone interview with a reporter last week, and we chatted about Mattie and the Foundation for 40 minutes. She then asked to talk to a few people in our care community, so I connected Amber with Ann (our Team Mattie Coordinator), with Tricia (Mattie's outstanding and all time favorite nurse), and Linda (Mattie's incredible Child Life Specialist). When Peter and I read the article today, I have to say that Tricia's comments truly moved us. In fact we were both crying. We both reacted to her comments the same way and keep in mind that we were in two separate rooms while reading the article. Tricia was able to capture the dynamics we lived through and she deeply understands the bonds that we formed within the hospital and within our care community. I know health care professionals are supposed to maintain emotional boundaries, but early on, I realized that these were impossible to maintain given our situation. With a grave crisis like ours, guess what? Boundaries go out the window and instead the only way to truly help people is to relate to them as humans.... on an emotional level! Not every one is capable of this, and what happened over the time Mattie was in treatment was we migrated away from those health care professionals who were incapable of being real and invested. After all, they weren't just prescribing antibiotics, these were people who held Mattie's life and future in their hands! I am sure these special bonds explains why we remain very close to Tricia even today, three years after Mattie died. The fact that Tricia could elucidate on this feeling and actually stated it, made me smile. She said what I had always felt, but no one had the courage to say, and that was nurses connected with Mattie, Peter, and I on a deep level. This deep connection is important to me and I admire those who are courageous enough to share with me what is in their heart.
Miracles Continue in Mattie's Memory
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/news/2013/may/16/miracles-continue-matties-memory/
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