Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2007. To me this was quintessential Mattie! Mattie was the ultimate multi-tasker. He loved his sand box and as you can see he had his fishing pole out and was pretending his sand toys were fish! He had quite the imagination but Mattie never liked to play alone. He was a social creature and always wanted my attention and for me to be a part of his play schemes. At times this was very tiring as a parent, because from the moment Mattie woke up in the morning until the moment his head touched the pillow, he demanded my full time attention. All I can say now is I am happy I spent those HOURS, DAYS, and YEARS with him. There will never be regrets on that front regarding time spent or my priorities. Which is fortunate, because that would be a terrible place for me to be in now..... living with that kind of regret and misgivings.
Quote of the day: If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Today I corresponded back and forth with a mom who I met at Georgetown Hospital in 2008. Cathy's daughter, Bridget and Mattie were both diagnosed with cancer around the same time. Which is how I got to know their wonderful family. Through the years, Cathy became a blog reader and I follow Bridget's Caringbridge site. Bridget just turned 21 this month, so she is a bit older than Mattie would be, but she continues to bravely and courageously fight her disease. In fact, Bridget is truly a remarkable young woman who I find quite inspiring and I hope one day she will allow me to interview her because she has a great sense of humor and perspective on life. Which when you think about it is quite remarkable given the fact that she has grown up in hospitals fighting for her life. How can't that alter one's development and mind set? I don't have the answer to this but I do know it takes super human strength and a remarkable family to help stabilize a very challenging day by day situation. Bridget had a bone marrow transplant in April and for the next 100 days, she is living in and out of the hospital. For my faithful readers, I ask that you keep Bridget in your thoughts!
When I look at my own situation, what Cathy's family is enduring, and that of other childhood cancer patients and their families, I guess I continue to be perplexed when I hear teenagers around me whining about their tough and challenging lives. Their everyday challenges! Challenges that kids in the hospital would love to have! Every day problems! As the school year begins to end, and kids are headed for summer vacation, guess what?!! Kids on treatment do NOT have vacation! There is no vacation, there is only treatment. This is the life of a child and teen with cancer. They grow up quickly and chances are when you interact with kids who have cancer, you will think right away that they are older than their chronological years. This happens NOT because the disease physically ages them, but it happens because the disease PSYCHOLOGICALLY ages them. These changes in turn cascade down and impact everyone in the family.
Cathy asked me today how on earth I find the where with all to write each and every day on Mattie's blog?! This July, will mark my sixth year of writing, and she is correct, writing is a labor of love. When I was in Cathy's shoes, my head was spinning and I was simply exhausted most days. I do not know how I wrote, and how I wrote intelligibly. But I also knew there were people interested in Mattie's progress... the difference between NOW and then is before we were talking about the life of a child. People were concerned about Mattie's life because there was something very unnatural about a child developing cancer. It caused great fear and in essence that fear mobilized forces to act and to support us in incredible ways. So I was compelled to write and was under some delusion that eventually Mattie would go back to school, and therefore it was important to remain connected to the community and those around us. I never thought our story was going to end in death. Or maybe I did not want to accept that reality. So I figured I would keep on writing, but of course now six years later I still continue to write. Naturally my audience of readers has changed a bit and some days I may write more for my own edification than anyone else's. But writing has become my own outlet, because over time the support system for a parent who lost an only child to cancer isn't exactly HUGE.
No comments:
Post a Comment