Tonight's picture was taken on April 4, 2009, Mattie's 7th and last birthday. Mattie celebrated his birthday in the hospital that year. Posing next to Mattie is Sarah Marshall. Sarah Marshall was one of Mattie's outstanding HEM/ONC nurses. We met Sarah Marshall early on in Mattie's treatment process and learned she is a childhood cancer survivor who was treated at St. Judes Research Hospital. The fact that Sarah Marshall is a survivor gave me hope, in addition to that she is an incredibly competent nurse, she is also compassionate, witty, humorous, and sharp. She could keep up with Mattie and also understood his struggles. Sarah Marshall is her official name, but on September 9th of 2009, she became our "Angel of Mercy." Sarah Marshall was with us during the grueling night that Mattie died. In many ways, I could try to describe Mattie's death until I am blue in the face, but suffice it to say, you truly needed to be there to understand the level of trauma we experienced. Sarah Marshall couldn't have pumped enough narcotics into Mattie. Mattie was on pain pumps, getting IV boluses of pain meds, was on inhalers to help him breathe, and the list went on. It was tragic, the sounds were ghastly, and throughout the night Mattie's bed was filled with syringes. It looked like a war zone. There was just not enough medicine available to keep him comfortable which is why Mattie needed to be induced into a coma to die. Sarah Marshall went through these agonizing hours with us. I think you should also note that Sarah Marshall is NO LONGER a HEM/ONC nurse at Georgetown. After Mattie's death, she became a PICU nurse. I do not know for sure, but I suspect there was a direct correlation between Mattie's traumatic death and her migrating over to working in the intensive care unit. As I look at this photo tonight, I remember April 4th and September 9th very vividly!
Quote of the day: To see an angel, you must see another's soul. To feel an angel, you must touch another's heart. To hear an angel you must listen to both. ~ Author Unknown
I had the pleasure of interacting with 17 kindergarten students today at Mattie's school. It was my first art session in my series of three. I have done this series for the past four years and it is always my honor to be invited back by Donna, one of the outstanding kindergarten teachers that I have had the pleasure of getting to know. Donna and I share a lot in common. We both love to learn, the art of conversation, learning about people and places, pursuing and discussing feelings, and of course art.
This week, my goal was to introduce the students to Picasso. I first wanted to ask them some basic questions such as: 1) Are you an artist? 2) Is there a right or wrong way to do art? 3) When you look at art, does it make you feel a certain way? Ultimately I wanted the children to understand that color evokes certain feelings for them, and yet not every color evokes the same feelings for every person. I love red and it makes me happy, and yet for others red makes them feel edgy or angry. To illustrate my point, I taped a piece of paper with the color red on Donna's back. Donna couldn't see the color. I told the students not to shout out the color either. The point of the exercise was they had to describe how the color made them feel, from that description, Donna then had to guess what color I taped to her back. After that exercise, I then read to the class the wonderful Dr. Seuss book, My Many Colored Days. A wonderful book, about how we all have our up and down days within us, and each of those moods and feelings Dr. Seuss attaches to a color. A clever book, told in Seuss fashion.
After this color introduction, I then moved onto my power point presentation. Literally the children sat still for 30 minutes as I introduced them to content. They saw slides of Picasso. What he looked like as a child, an adult, what some of his art work looked like in his blue period and rose period. I wanted the children to understand that Picasso painted how he felt! If he was sad, his paintings were sad (BLUE), if he was happy, his paintings were also happy (ROSE). The final concept I explained to them was cubism (people and objects are painted using geometric shapes, such as cubes, circles, and triangles. In addition, people or objects in the painting are shown from many different points of view at the same time). This style fascinated them and literally they came up to the screen to stare at the objects and to try to determine what on earth Picasso had painted and created. It was darling to see and hear their banter.
Many of the children were priceless today! However, at the end of the session, one little girl came up to me to let me know how much she appreciated my visit, all my efforts, and thanked me for coming. It was such a mature and lovely thank you. I have to admit I was caught off guard, but of course thanked her very much and told her she made my day.
The third part of my classroom experience was the snack. Because Picasso was born in Spain, I made the children, apple empanadas. I baked them yesterday and this year I even coated them with sugar and cinnamon while they were baking. They seemed to go over well at the end of our time together.
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