Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2009. Mattie was home and in between treatments. That day we wheeled Mattie down to the National Mall. We fed the ducks and tried to have a picnic on the lawn. Peter snapped this photo of us and I remember this snapshot in time like it were yesterday.
Quote of the day: Change is inevitable. Change is constant. ~ Benjamin Disraeli
The Hospital is undergoing a major construction project to build a whole new surgery center. In doing so, they are tearing down the brick building you are seeing in the background.
To me this is like destroying a piece of Mattie's treatment history. Mattie and I went to this building multiple times. For all of his hearing tests (which weren't always a positive experience, as Mattie's treatment permanently affected his hearing of higher pitched sound) as well as all of Mattie's outpatient meetings with his psychiatrist. I remember wheeling Mattie around in that cavernous building as well as toward the end hearing a story his therapist told me.
Mattie and his psychiatrist did a lot of play therapy. Many times Mattie gravitated to playing with a toy house. Apparently in his play scenarios the dolls represented Mattie and all his friends in the hospital. However, toward the end of Mattie's life, his play scenario was different. The Mattie doll refused to go into the house to play with his doll friends. When the psychiatrist asked him why, Mattie basically said he was different and could no longer play with them. In fact he said something like.... ghosts don't live in houses. On that day, I learned through play therapy that Mattie understood that he was dying.
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