Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Tuesday, February 19, 2019 -- Mattie died 492 weeks ago today
Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2009. Little did we know at that point in time that Mattie was dying. It is almost hard to believe when you look at that smiling face. Despite the bald head, he looked like the picture of health. Mattie loved his sandbox. In fact, that evening we ate outside, while Mattie was playing. To this day, this sandbox sits outside our deck door, and many of the children in our complex play in it. 


Quote of the day: Dreams say what they mean, but they don't say it in daytime language. ~ Gail Godwin


I received an email today from a friend. A friend who actually knew Mattie when he was healthy. This particular friend has a Mattie dream at least once a year and remembers it. I am lucky that my friend always tells me about it. This is what she wrote to me today.........................

I had a dream about Mattie last night. I was walking outside from one building in the complex to another. I noticed a small boy peering inside the sandbox (the one outside our deck).  The lid was quite heavy for him and he was struggling to keep it up while looking inside at the same time. As I got closer I stood there frozen looking at him-it was Mattie about 6 years old and quite healthy! He came over to me and said... I remember you. I crouched down to his eye level, and he smiled at me. Confused I asked Mattie, what are you doing? With a serious look he told me he got very sick and pointed to the window and said that was my room…see? I looked in the direction he was pointing, and he then said I like to watch my mommy. I looked back at the window to see if I could see anyone and when I looked back, he was gone.

As I was reading this message, I thought at first it was just cute or rather coincidental that my friend has these dreams. But when I read that the dream involved the sandbox, and Mattie saying he was watching me through the window, it made me pause! Actually, the whole notion gave me chills, because look at this photo I took today. 

From my office window, I can look at the green frog sandbox, outside our deck door. So from my friend's dream, it sounded as if Mattie watches me through the window as I am working from his sandbox. Who is to say this isn't happening? Who is to say it's just a dream.

In fact, I told me friend that her dream seemed more like a message than a dream. Because the way in which she recalled the dream and the words she used to describe the dream seemed more like something Mattie would actually say to me. 

I think there are things in life that we don't always understand and certainly when grieving the death of a child, which makes NO sense to begin with, anything is possible. I like the notion of Mattie playing in his sandbox and him watching over us/me. So I am sticking with that vision tonight.