Monday, October 31, 2022

Monday, October 31, 2022

Tonight's picture was taken on October 31 of 2008, this was our last Halloween with Mattie. Given Mattie was recovering from limb salvaging surgery on his right arm (which was in a sling), we had to find the right costume for him. Mattie's art therapists and child life specialist invited him to the clinic to pick a costume without other children around. It was very kind of them and when Mattie saw the mummy costume, he loved it. He liked how it covered his head and also you couldn't tell that his right arm was wrapped and not usable. In other words, he did not look like a kid with cancer. Mattie celebrated Halloween at the hospital by day and in the evening, we went to his friend Zachary's house and they went trick or treating together. Peter snapped this photo of Mattie and I as we were headed to the hospital to go trick or treating in all the admin offices. 

Quote of the day: We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love. ~ Anne L. de Stael

This is Dawn! She is one of the servers we absolutely love. She used to work in Reston, VA, and now is in Rockville, MD. We travel one hour back and forth to visit with her weekly. I do this because she is great stimulation for my dad. Though we did not go out to eat today, Dawn sent me a photo of her at work in her Halloween costume. Dawn is a live wire, which is the irony of her choice of a nun's habit. 

I am very grateful to all the incredible servers in our lives. They understand what I am balancing and look out for all of us. Given my juggling act, going out isn't easy. In fact, I am sure most adult children wouldn't entertain this with their parents. Which is why knowing I have people like Dawn and Cheryl to rely on, makes a huge difference to my existence. It restores my hope in human nature.

More boxes came in today for the item drive. I am beyond grateful, as now we have to stock four Carts that serve families caring for children with cancer. I do not like disappointing any of the hospitals we serve and our supporters enable us to make these Mattie Miracles possible. 

My mother-in-law sent me a recipe for pumpkin pudding. My mom and I love pumpkin, as did Mattie. So I made the pudding tonight while prepping dinner. When I was a child, my grandma served me pudding in the three front glasses (the ones with gold colored leaves). 

It is raining this evening so our neighborhood gathering was cancelled. Which is just as well because after last year's experience, we vowed never to go to it again. We are working on putting a big bin of candy on the driveway and trying to keep it dry. Below you will find an excerpt from last year's Halloween blog. Some things stay with me so vividly, mostly because they evoke an emotion. I can still remember how dejected, depressed, and angry I felt after last year's gathering. Literally it made me feel like I did not belong in this community and shouldn't have moved. In Washington, DC people knew our story and several people even knew Mattie. Here in this new community, no one knows Mattie or our forever journey with loss. It was and is hard to leave behind Mattie memory keepers.

From October 31, 2021 Blog:

The HOA of the neighborhood sent out an email saying there would be a Halloween parade at 5pm and that neighbors should line the street and give out candy to kids in the parade. So sure enough Peter, Sunny, and I were outside with candy. But there was NO parade. I am not flexible about this kind of stuff. If you tell me to be somewhere and to participate, I expect there to be something to participate in! At 5:15pm, we then walked to a cul de sac in the neighborhood where a pizza party was going to take place before trick or treating. Again, we went because we wanted to be social. What a mistake that was, and I won't be going again. 

The number one question asked of us is.... do you have children. In fact, if one more person asked me that, I thought I was going to explode. Then we got stuck talking to quite a couple. This couple recently sold their house and they are relocating south to be near their daughter who just had a baby. Their other daughter is training to be a pediatrician. The couple was giving me a lecture on how tired they are (as they are moving, one daughter got married, and the other is having a baby) and also how special their daughter (studying to be a physician) is because she is COMPETENT. He said that is the best quality a doctor can have. Now perhaps if you are talking to someone inexperienced with the medical field, I would have just smiled and said.... OH YES or absolutely! But you are talking to ME! I couldn't take it and therefore let him have it. I said most physicians are competent. It is the physician who can listen, include the patient and family as part of the treatment team, and also have the compassion to understand that illness is much more than just about solutions... that's what makes a physician stand out from others.