Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2009. Mattie was in the hospital recovering from his lung surgery. It was important to get Mattie up and moving, but that wasn't easy. As you can see Mattie was transferred to a chair, but was exhausted. Rarely did Mattie ever nap, even when healthy. The only time we saw this was when he was totally depleted. Even when fighting cancer, we rarely saw Mattie knocked out. So when we did, we understood his level of fatigue. Guarding over Mattie was "Sunshine," his albino boa constrictor stuffed animal. Sunshine was given to him by his buddy with osteosarcoma, Jocelyn. Sunshine still sits in Mattie's bedroom even today.
Quote of the day: Had any poet adequately described the wretched ugliness of a loved one turned inside out with grief? ~ Kate Morton
In July of 2013, I was introduced to my friend in cancer. She had just lost her only child to cancer the month before and had the where with all to ask her doctor to be connected to another family who also lost an only child. My friend seemed to understand immediately the magnitude of her loss and wanted to talk to someone in her very shoes. We can debate this issue from all angles, but from my perspective losing an only child is a very difficult loss. Not that any child replaces another, but when you lose your only one, things change for you overnight. Today, my friend's son would have turned 17. He died at age 12. It is hard to believe I have known her all these years, and like Mattie, I have watched her go through middle school and now high school without her son. In many ways, we have each other to validate certain feelings. Ironically since meeting my friend in 2013, we have written to each other EVERY DAY for four years. Clearly our conversations have evolved over the years, but in a way, I know all her significant dates, as she knows mine. So when we feel the rest of the world may forget about us, we don't forget about each other. It isn't like we had a chat about this, we aren't necessarily even conscious of it, until I reflected on her loss today as I was sitting down writing this blog.
Meanwhile, in passing today I met an acquaintance I know from Mattie's preschool days. She mentioned to me that her daughter announced to her today that she was having her first baby. So she was going to be a grandmother. Naturally I expressed my happiness to her and congratulated her. Because that is the SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE thing to do. Thank goodness though I have filters, because when someone tells me they or someone they know is going to have a baby, I internally have two VERY distinct reactions. The first is...... well I hope this baby will be cancer free and you will never know what I do, which is 46 children a day are diagnosed with cancer and every thirty minutes in the USA a child dies from cancer! But my other internal reaction is..... why tell me this? Does anyone think I really want to hear about another's joy? I know that sounds very mean and very selfish. Which typically I am not, but when it comes to this issue, it sends bells and whistles off in my head. It makes me frustrated, irritated, and overall angry. Angry because I am supposed to understand your joy and happiness, while you don't have the foggiest notion what this news just did to me!!!
I came home today angry, bordering on hostile. Of course for a while I couldn't pin point what was causing this, until I walked with Sunny and cleared my head. But between my friend in cancer celebrating a birthday without her son and this other woman telling me her good news, it was too much for me to handle. So internally I snapped. After all, who am I going to snap at!? I can't snap at the woman delivering the news, I can't snap at others on the street..... well I can snap at Peter and do, but as usual it is misdirected anger. Again it is a blog posting with no answers to my many questions about people! Nonetheless, even if I receive no responses to what I am expressing, I find thinking and processing through what I am feeling is therapeutic.
1 comment:
Vicki,
You can always count on hearing from me. I find that when friends, acquaintances get together, rarely do they take note of how they know this person. Maybe, if more of us did, we would think twice about what we share & how we direct our part of the conversation.
Death is a part of life but death from Childhood Cancer is one, that most people would like to forget or remain uninformed on how the loss of a child totally devastates the rest of the life of the child's parents. Forever loss is only totally understood by parents who live in this world. However, this does not excuse the rest of us from ignoring that it exists. To learn to measure our words and to remember their child lived and deserves & should be remembered.
I have many thoughts on child loss as I know many people who live their life without their child. I believe that when a child dies, they take parts of their parents with them because we love our child with all we have. If there are other children in the family, it is still a forever loss because other children don't replaces the uniqueness of the love parents have for the child that died. What I do firmly believe & know is when an only child dies, parents are left mourning their child, living with forever loss & dealing with the fact that their parenting is finished.
Yet, their child did not grow up. All memories have a finite amount of time. So I agree that parents whose only child dies face life without their child differently. These parents ideas about family & what it means changes. So they live with forever loss of their child and forever loss of being a parent from that day forward. All their dreams, hopes, are gone. I think others for whatever reason don't see this.
I am not saying the loss of the child is greater but the loss as parent is because it is finished. Hope I am making sense.
I have spent years thinking about kids dying, leaving their parents to wake up each day and face the future without them. All the would a, could a, should a' s of life. Personally, I will never understand why more people don't see this! I will always be perplexed that people share news that while exciting for them, might bring pain to another.
I hope you can make sense of what Inam trying to say! If not, I hope you will ask me specifics about what I have said.
I think often of the children, I have known that died during treatment. In fact, I have a book, given to me by a parent that contains more pictures of children no longer living than of kids that survived. The why of this is because in many cases I developed strong friendships with them & their parents. They just knew I would always remember them. That I Would keep important dates, special memories of them. That they would always be remember for their unique qualities. That I Would always remember, they were much more than their diagnosis and that they had a strong life before we ever met.
I am grateful, you write your blog, share pictures of Mattie both during his Cancer treatment and many photos from all the years before diagnosis. This makes me feel like I know Mattie.
There is so much more I could say but I hope you can read between the lines. I care, you were hurt today!
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