Saturday, December 11, 2021

Saturday, December 11, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2007. Mattie was five years old and looked and acted like the picture of health. Never in my wildest imagination would I think that 7 months later he would be diagnosed with cancer. Each Christmas Mattie got a special sweater in order to take a holiday photo. Mattie was featured on the front of our family's card. Ironically I never captured all three of us on the card, only Mattie. Mattie loved decorating the tree and also loved his Christmas train. Which he assembled around the tree. It was a tradition.

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins. 

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 49,874,867
• Number of people who died from the virus: 797,121

Peter and I have NOT bought a Christmas tree or decorated for Christmas since 2008, when Mattie was diagnosed with cancer. When Mattie died, so did most of the joy in our lives. A reality most don't want to hear about, but nonetheless the fact of the matter. 

With my parents moving in, I felt it was important to decorate, as I think it helps to orient my dad to the season and it brings some festivities to winter and the cold. In other words temperatures my parents are not used to. But here's the funny part..... we had a warm snap today, and it close to 70 degrees! 

This afternoon, we took my parents to a Clyde's restaurant in Ashburn, VA. Outside the restaurant were huge nutcrackers. Another guest of the restaurant offered to take our photo, and we did it! It is naturally hard to leave behind one's routine and restaurants one has gotten accustomed to, but we are trying to make new connections and traditions here for them. I have concluded that I will cook Monday through Friday, but Saturday and Sunday, we will go out. I feel this is the best way to manage food, as I want Peter to be a part of our meals and process, and though my parents are used to eating their main meal at lunch time, I am switching this up to dinner time. Otherwise if I kept their LA schedule, we would only eat one meal a day in the afternoon (outside the house), and I would never be eating and connecting with Peter. I am determined to find the right balance and fortunately Peter and I have been through so much already, that we are good working together under the worst of conditions and chaos.