Tonight's picture was taken on March 7, 2007. That day it snowed and out we went onto our deck. As you can see, Mattie and I built snow castles. After they were built, we went out to our commons area and picked stones, which Mattie used to decorate the tops of his castles! This was a telltale Mattie design. Even Mattie's sandcastles on the beach had flair. After we would build sandcastles, we would walk the beach and comb for shells, seaweed, drift wood and even sea glass. Those found objects were used to decorate the sandcastles. All I know is life with Mattie was never boring, always stimulating, and he lived his life to the fullest in his 7 short years with us.
Quote of the day: The height of your maturity and sagacity depends on your ability to see the beauty in ugly situations. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson
After dropping my dad off this morning at his memory care program, I took my mom to the hospital for her bone density scan. While walking through the main hallway of the hospital, I heard someone yelling out..... HI VICKI. Truly at first I kept on walking, as I was in my own world and focused on getting my mom where she needed to be. But this person was persistent and came up right behind me. It was one of my dad's physical therapists, who is on maternity leave. We haven't seen her for six months. It was lovely seeing her and catching up within a few minutes. This is her second child. Her first was a girl and now the second child is a boy! We were talking about the night and day differences of raising a boy.
Her daughter was calm and could self entertained as a baby. Her son, sounds a lot like Mattie. JUST ON! Physically he does not like sitting in his car seat, or in a stroller, and forget a baby carrier. In addition he wants to be near her constantly. I remember these days so so well. I may have only raised Mattie for seven years, but I learned a ton in that short time. Mattie forced me beyond my comfort zone, to think creatively, and to make the most of a given moment. As I told my dad's therapist today, these moments as we go through them seem endless. They seem like things will never get better, but then with time and development, most issues iron themselves out. How I wish I could have those moments back! Back then it seemed like we had a lifetime ahead of us.
I am not sure what is exactly going on with me, other than I am having constant bouts of panic attacks for a week. Is there any one particular trigger or stress? NO! I am sure I will get down to the bottom of this, but thankfully I know what this feeling is, because otherwise, I would think something was very wrong with my heart. I think feeling sick for a month, managing my dad's hospitalizations, helping my mom, juggling finances, the Foundation, and pervasive heartbreak, just weighs me down. It is a hard level of devastation to describe, but ironically I have been reading a woman's memoir about her divorce and its impact on her life. Her words are literally jumping off the pages at me, as I feel and I can relate to everything she is writing. We share different journeys and yet very similar reactions! Putting WORDS and MEANING to a divorce JOURNEY, I would say is the only way to face, cope, and find a way forward. By sharing these words it normalizes the devastation.... because by sharing our story we are reminded that our pain and grief are justified, they are the by-product of the situation!
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