Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2002. Thank goodness for Shutterfly. It is an on-line photo system that stores all of our photos. For some reason I can't find many of the electronic photos I stored on my computer. Not even in our back up folders. Thankfully when I went to our Shutterfly account, I was able to download many of the wonderful baby photos we took of Mattie. This is one for example. When Mattie was a baby he looked more like Peter. It was only when Mattie became a toddler, and certainly as preschooler, did he look just like me. Mattie was three months old in this photo..... but look how alert he was!!! As I always said, Mattie was born on and did not want to miss out on anything, which was one of the reasons he never napped.
Quote of the day: All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Not that I wasn't aware of this already, but my life revolves around walking. I live in the city, which means walking is involved, I have an active dog who needs constant walking, and a lot of the work I do for the Foundation entails walking, carrying items, and MORE walking. After meeting with the doctor two days ago, I was disillusioned, especially since arthritis isn't something that improves with time. Given how awful it has been to even put shoes on, I have been worrying about my overall quality of life.
In any case, despite how I feel, I keep moving. I have learned for the past 15 years how to live with daily chronic headaches and migraines. So I have a lot of experience with pain, but on top of that I am dealing with fibromyalgia and arthritis now. It's quite a combination. When I sit back and assess all of this, what I deduce is a lot of issues have arisen for me since Mattie's death. In a way, experiencing this trauma and loss has aged my body internally. People may look at me and think I am fine, but my battery of issues do say otherwise.
There were times today, I wanted to say.... nope I am not doing this! But I did not give in an listen. Instead I went about my chores and even walked Sunny. While out with Sunny today, we bumped into several of our neighbors. It was like a block party, without the party. So this was a positive diversion, which once again I would never have had WITHOUT walking.
1 comment:
Vicki, I feel certain, that many health issues, you experience are directly related to Mattie's Cancer & death. The ultimate loss of his daily presence. You never got to watch and enjoy anything past seven. The year and a couple months, he lived post diagnosis were filled with watching him suffer, making hard decisions, watching him die. How could all of that not affect your body in harsh ways. I am truly sorry. I know you love walking and keeping active. I am hoping that you receive some help that makes it liveable even if it is a part of your life going forward.
Mattie does look like Peter in the picture tonight. He was a beautiful baby. He certainly changed though to look like you and that is obvious in every picture going forward. Thank you for sharing the picture. I love that you post pictures of Mattie. This way I get to know him at least a little
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