Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2009. One of Mattie's friends brought him this HUGE Scooby Doo balloon. Mattie absolutely LOVED Scooby Doo. In fact, his sixth birthday (pre-cancer), Scooby was the theme of the party! I have to imagine that we watched every single Scooby Doo TV episode and ALL the movies throughout Mattie's cancer battle. Even when Mattie was healthy he was never a couch potato and he wasn't the kind of kid who liked to be connected to technology. Instead Mattie loved exploring his world and was very hands on, and wanted you to be too. This did not change much when he got cancer. Though the medications were toxic and slowed him down, he rarely wanted to just watch TV, and when he did you knew he was sick.
Quote of the day: Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality. ~ Emily Dickinson
One would think that milk, eggs, bread and so forth would be running low. Or at least these were the items in the past that people ran to the store for! NOT this time, what was practically barren were the meat and poultry display cases. Practically empty! It was hard to imagine.
But the fun was the check out line. I took a photo of it because I have NEVER experienced the one line queuing model. Instead of lining up by each cash register, one long line for check out was formed. A line that went around the periphery of the store. I gather this model was started so that people weren't bunching up and backing up by the cash registers. For the most part people complied with this one line model. Yet a few people were confused and jumped the line and waited by the cash register instead. Needless to say, when that happened, a fellow customer would go up to that person and point out that they cut the line and had to go ALL the way in the back of the line and WAIT their turn!
While I waited my turn and finally got to the cash register, I noticed a woman pop up behind me and a man behind her. The man quickly told her that she cut the line. Now he could have sent her packing! But instead, he explained to her the process and allowed her to stay behind me and in front of him. While I was being checked out, I started talking to both of them. The fellow was a navy officer who graduated from Annapolis. He told us about the many places he was stationed at but what caught our attention is he liked to cook and had great recipes. I thanked him for his service to the Country and he was very happy to be acknowledged but said "of course." As if he wouldn't have it any other way. I really liked the way he treated the lady behind me, his patience, and trying to spare her from waiting long, since she was older than us. So in the midst of what could be chaos, there was order and compassion around me. Mind you when I left the store, Channel 7 pulled in because I have no doubt they saw a potential story here!
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