Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2009. That day we were playing in Mattie's bedroom while he was home between hospital stays. Mattie decided to put on his shield, helmet, and sword. This was not an unusual occurrence for Mattie, even in his pre-cancer days. The only difference was two fold, Mattie was in pajamas and his right leg was bent. Mattie rarely got out of pajamas once he developed cancer. This was his choice. He did not like the hassle of changing into clothes, nor did he like the sensation of clothes on his skin. Chemotherapy does affect your skin and can cause sensitivities, of which Mattie had plenty of even before cancer started. After Mattie's limb salvaging surgery of his right leg, Mattie was never able to straighten his leg again. It was a double edged sword. Mattie had three limbs operated on within a month's time. Typically kids who may have osteo in a leg, have their leg operated on but can then build strength back up in their legs by putting weight on their arms. Mattie couldn't do this because his arms were also healing from surgery. So it made it almost impossible for Mattie to do the exercises he needed to rehabilitate, and therefore the result was Mattie never walked again or straightened his leg after October of 2008. Mattie may have looked like a knight in this photo, but unfortunately our knight was unable to take a step in his outfit to play.
Quote of the day: I didn't want to kiss you goodbye, that was the trouble; I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there's a lot of difference. ~ Ernest Hemingway
Peter and I have been reminiscent all evening and day today about our 24 hour trip to Boston. Naturally the trip made me reflect on my time with my special 85 year old friend Mary, but also of the culture of Boston itself. As many of my faithful readers know, Peter was born and raised in Boston. I also went to graduate school for three years in Boston. So our observations yesterday are not casual ones. They are based on years of living there and then comparisons to living else where in the United States.
After Mary's funeral was over yesterday, we had to drive from one town to the next to attend the burial service. There was about 20 cars trailing behind the hearse. We were each given a shockingly bright orange card that said "FUNERAL" on it to hang from our rear view mirror, and were told to put our bright lights on as well as our hazard lights. Literally we were a caravan of 20 cars proceeding from the church to the cemetery. That notion may sound typical to some of you depending upon your culture or what state you live in. I can assure you this whole etiquette is VERY different from my funeral experiences growing up in New York. It only got better. In Massachusetts, funeral caravans are given the right away at red lights. So literally on coming traffic is supposed to just know to automatically stop for you until you make it through the intersection. This whole notion was shocking to me, and down right frightening. Peter and I were the second to last car in the caravan. Meaning we had to be aggressive! With each red light we were passing, I was getting edgy and I made my feelings known to Peter. He didn't get me at all! We weren't on the same page about this which seemed odd to me, but what was even more amazing was for the most part, the on coming traffic seemed to comply and understood that they had to wait for all of us to pass. Well except at two intersections and in those two places it got nasty with horns and hands flying in the air and I DON'T mean by us!!!
I am quite sure that such a caravan wouldn't go so well in NY. In fact, I can picture chaos, not to mention in DC. In DC you can't block traffic without a team of police officers! Yet people in Massachusetts are conditioned and follow a code of respect for the dead and funerals. I found it down right amazing. Last night, I think Peter gave all of this a lot of thought and came up to talk to me about this. He literally said.... "I now see why you were so upset about passing the red lights." He could see how dangerous this could be and how if you did not grow up knowing this was the routine, that this could be down right daunting. To Peter this was part of his ingrained culture, but to me it most certainly wasn't. The subtle differences we can learn about our cultural differences, and literally we are all part of the same USA culture. But the United States, is comprised of very diverse states.
At Mary's reception yesterday, I took a three leaf clover plastic ring off one of the desserts. Today I put it in my car. It hangs on Mattie's bead flower that he made for me in preschool. Both the flower and the ring hangs from my rear view mirror and every time I drive and see these items swinging at me, I will be thinking of both of them.
1 comment:
Oh! I didn't realize that do the funeral train with cars wasn't done everywhere in the US! It's done in NH, as that's where most of my funerals have been for family members, and i just participated here, in MD, that went on a LONG ride of about 40 minutes - and on highways - and it worked for the most part. Interesting to hear it's not done everywhere.
Cassandra
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