Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2006. I loved Mattie's pajamas with feet. If you look closely at this dinosaur outfit you may see stickers attached to the front. Mattie loved to collect stickers. Stickers of all kinds! If someone gave him a name tag or a sticker, he always kept it! Sometimes he would wear them (which you can see two on his pajama) and when he was tired to doing that, he then would place the sticker on his wooden bed frame. Again, something that I would never have liked pre-Mattie. To me one doesn't deface furniture like that, but for Mattie it was one of his many collections that he enjoyed. It is hard to imagine that I still have the sticker collection on our guest room bed but I no longer have the creator!
Quote of the day: How often, you wonder, has the direction of your life been shaped by such misunderstandings? How many opportunities have you been denied--or, for that matter, awarded--because someone failed to see you properly? How many friends have you lost, how many have you gained, because they glimpsed some element of your personality that shone through for only an instant, and in circumstances you could never reproduce? An illusion of water shimmering at the far bend of a highway. ~ Kevin Brockmeier
The District of Columbia was under a snow advisory all day. Everything was closed from schools to the government. Having grown up as a teenager in Los Angeles, I do not have the foggiest notion of how to drive in the snow. Therefore on snow days, I either walk or take the metro. However, today I was inundated with Foundation think tank work and never left my computer. I feel truly privileged to be working closely with two psycho-oncologists on this project. Our overall team has about 40 people, but these two women are incredible leaders and they also care about Peter and me and what we went through with Mattie and continue to go through as grieving parents.
In the midst of working, I received an email from a mutual friend about our friend's birthday luncheon tomorrow. For my faithful readers, you know I have been debating whether to attend this lunch or not, given the fact that all of the women are part of a mom's group. Moms talk about their children and some times it is hard to blend into such a group. Not only do I not fit in, but I know I unintentionally make people nervous. Any case, the organizer of the lunch wanted to assess how many of us were planning to come to lunch tomorrow even if schools were closed due to snow. I answered her back saying that I would wait to hear the verdict from others since her question did not apply to me. I did not say anything else, but the email sender felt so badly that she called me on the phone to apologize. Naturally I am the only one in the group without a child and therefore asking me whether the snow will affect me tomorrow could be deemed as insensitive. I did not interpret it that way honestly. Instead, I just felt like it was another reminder how different I am from my friends. YET AGAIN!!!
Tonight's quote seems to just scream out as TRUE. It applies so deeply to a grieving parent. Our lives are constantly shaped now by misunderstandings. Just like the one today for example. Parents who have healthy children and parents who lost their children really communicate on two different wavelengths and sometimes in the process we land up hurting each other. We can misinterpret what the other is saying. But as a by-product of miscommunications it can affect my behavior. Such as deciding not to go to a lunch, an event, or to avoid an interaction altogether. Mainly because I fear what will happen and be said. My actions are influenced by past miscommunications, they aren't manufactured in my head. They are real. With each social event now, I have to ask myself whether it is worth going? Because unlike in the first year after Mattie died, now for the most part no one is there to talk over my feelings with me or to cheer me up when something sets me off or puts me in a funk.
Grieving the loss of a child has a direct impact on your friendships. You lose many friends in the process for various reasons. Certainly you may gain a few, usually because of a shared grief and loss. But the line in tonight's quote that circles around in my head is............."failed to see me properly!" I couldn't have said it better. There are two worlds for me the world where people have healthy children and the world in which you have lost a child to cancer. Because Mattie's battle is a part of me and lives within me, its impact isn't always evident on me. After all I shower, wear clean clothes, put myself together, and talk and act coherently. Yet unless you really listen...... you will always fail to see my properly and also fail to see how Mattie's death influences what I see, hear, think, and feel.
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