Mattie Miracle Walk 2023 was a $131,249 success!

Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation Promotional Video

Thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive!

Dear Mattie Blog Readers,

It means a great deal to us that you take the time to write to us and to share your thoughts, feelings, and reflections on Mattie's battle and death. Your messages are very meaningful to us and help support us through very challenging times. To you we are forever grateful. As my readers know, I promised to write the blog for a year after Mattie's death, which would mean that I could technically stop writing on September 9, 2010. However, at the moment, I feel like our journey with grief still needs to be processed and fortunately I have a willing support network still committed to reading. Therefore, the blog continues on. If I should find the need to stop writing, I assure you I will give you advanced notice. In the mean time, thank you for reading, thank you for having the courage to share this journey with us, and most importantly thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive.


As Mattie would say, Ooga Booga (meaning, I LOVE YOU)! Vicki and Peter



The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation celebrates its 7th anniversary!

The Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation was created in the honor of Mattie.

We are a 501(c)(3) Public Charity. We are dedicated to increasing childhood cancer awareness, education, advocacy, research and psychosocial support services to children, their families and medical personnel. Children and their families will be supported throughout the cancer treatment journey, to ensure access to quality psychosocial and mental health care, and to enable children to cope with cancer so they can lead happy and productive lives. Please visit the website at: www.mattiemiracle.com and take some time to explore the site.

We have only gotten this far because of people like yourself, who have supported us through thick and thin. So thank you for your continued support and caring, and remember:

.... Let's Make the Miracle Happen and Stomp Out Childhood Cancer!

A Remembrance Video of Mattie

March 14, 2009

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Saturday, March 14, 2009


Quote of the day: "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results." ~ Herman Melville


This morning, Mattie woke up before I left for my meeting. For Mattie this was SUPER early considering he went to bed after midnight. Needless to say, Mattie scared me again with two toy roaches this morning. The places were different from yesterday morning. One was in my bath towel and the other was in my purse. I did not appreciate this trick today either. I am not sure how I made it through two days of meetings. But I am happy to report that I survived, I never tuned out, and instead found it stimulating. This evening the board had a lovely dinner in Alexandria, Va. The board gave me a gift after the dinner was over, they made a generous contribution to Mattie's fund. I was very touched by this gesture, and I learned that several board members read Mattie's blog regularly. That was a high honor. I did tell the board about Mattie's situation and not having Mattie around to protect him from my reaction, I landed crying. This crying continued all the way through my drive home. I pulled it together before I walked in the door and saw Mattie. One thing I did learn though, is even though I was working with a board of mental health counselors, even trained professionals have a hard time knowing what to say when hearing about Mattie's situation. After all what is there to say? Maybe saying nothing, but listening is the best thing to do in all reality! Because really there is nothing you can say to take this pain away and a trite response with the magnitude of Mattie's situation is just so inadequate. Needless to say, I was proud of myself for holding it together, and just when I think I can't rise to the occasion, somehow I find resources I never knew I had. Mattie's illness is becoming a great life teacher.

Mattie had another busy day with Peter. Mattie went to one of his favorite places, no it wasn't the lego store, but Home Depot. They like to browse, and came home with a new bird feeder, since our previous one broke. They had a busy day building with legos, and then Mattie's grandparents from Boston arrived. Mattie was showered with a lot of wonderful gifts. His two favorites were an adorable bunny hat and the other was a box filled with vintage train accessories. Mattie couldn't wait to show me all of his gifts when I walked in the door.















Mattie also had a visit from JJ (our resident Jack Russell Terrier) tonight. Do you love JJ's new jacket?!



We want to thank the Bartlett family for a wonderful and generous dinner. Mattie loved the mac and cheese! Thank you for the support.

I end tonight's blog with a message I received from my friend Charlie. Charlie wrote, "Friday's blog seems to be about connections and maintaining the contact even when apart. Keeping one's obligations even when doing so is not easy or convenient, means a lot. I know that both the people you met with and all of your support system knew how difficult it was for you to tear yourself away from Mattie on Friday. I wonder if Mattie's little gifts to you on Friday morning were supposed to ensure that you thought about him even though you were not going to spend the day with him? It sounds as if he was successful, if that was what he intended. I hope your meeting was productive and that the visit from Peter's parents goes well. I continue to be amazed at Mattie's creativity and sense of humor through all of this and I am sure that several years down the road you will be reminding Mattie of some of the practical jokes that he came up with during this treatment process."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Vicki~~I LOVE the bunny hat! Omigosh; Mattie looks so adorable in that hat! Little boys and their practical jokes, huh? My boys didn't like cockroaches, and after listening to your expreriences, I am so glad! But I am glad to hear that Mattie has that mischevious streak in spite of all he has been through! He is still a little boy! Cancer grows them up way too fast, so I am happy to hear of him being a typical little boy. Keep fighting this monster and doing such a great job with him. God bless you, my friend.

Love across the miles~~Kristi

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