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

January 20, 2010

Wednesday, January 20, 2010


Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Tonight's picture was also sent to me by Susan, a staff member at Mattie's school. It was taken during the lower school's field day in 2008. Mattie is the boy with the green sweater, on the right hand side of the picture. I am so happy Mattie's school sent me these wonderful photographs which document the happy and fun times he had, these are memories that I will cherish.

Poem of the day: Roller Coaster by Charlie Brown

The roller coaster I rode
With cancer as my co-pilot
Has been replaced by grief
And the ups and downs continue
I alternate between
Intense response to crisis
Or else I am unable to respond
And in intense shutdown
I am searching for a place
Of calm, of serenity
Where I can find the space
To breathe, to think, to focus
Perhaps that time will come
When the path becomes level
And grief only the occasional companion
But that time is not yet
Until then my friends
Bear with me and help me
Stay the rocky course
To a place of hope and healing

My friend, Charlie, wrote tonight's poem. "Roller coaster," reflects how I feel on any given day since cancer has entered my life. Mattie's cancer has deeply affected the person I am, it clouds how I view and feel about myself. Not to mention my outlook on the future. As the poem mentions, I am desperately looking for a place of calm and serenity. This may not be an external place or space per se, but instead, I would love a day of internal serenity, rather than the inner turmoil I swim through just to function on a daily basis.

I had the opportunity to visit two nursing homes today with Ann. As some of my readers may know, I have a deep care and concern for the older adult population in our society, along with their family caregivers. This affection may be the direct result of growing up with my maternal grandmother, who lived with my parents and I. My grandmother was like a second mother to me, and we spent a great deal of time together. She was a special, charming, and loving individual, who I am quite sure did not have a mean bone in her body. Walking into the nursing homes today, reminded me of the day my mom placed my grandmother in a nursing home. This was a very difficult decision for my mom, but my grandmother had suffered a massive stroke, which left her partially paralyzed, unable to swallow, read, and with a change in personality. Though my mom cared for my ill grandmother at home for over a year, my mom became very sick and was hospitalized as a result of her intense caregiving role. Therefore, my mom was unable to care for my grandmother at home. Checking my grandmother into a nursing home with my mom, was another hard thing to witness in my life. I remember so many emotions that day, and landed up yelling at the nursing home administrator.

Walking into a nursing home is another reality check that everyone should have in life. In fact, if I was an educator of young children, I would make visits to nursing homes a mandatory part of the curriculum. Children have a way of breathing life into these drab and lonely facilities. As you enter most nursing homes, you usually will find some residents at the door, who are desperately looking for love and attention from an outsider. Typically many of these wonderful individuals are forgotten by their loved ones and society as a whole. As I work with older adults, I always try to imagine what they must have been like when they were younger, I imagine the experiences they must have had, and what they have seen in their lifetime. But the humbling part about visiting a nursing home, is that I can't help but reflect that..... there by the GRACE OF GOD GO I.

This evening, I had the opportunity to visit with Mary and Mike (the friend I was telling you about who has been ill). We had dinner together and our conversations are always lively. Mary and Mike were valuable members of Team Mattie, and they are another fine example of the friendships we have cultivated thanks to our special seven year old. After dinner their girls were playing on the computer, and they went to one of Mattie's favorite websites to play a game. I remember these games, the sounds of the website, and the characters in the games, as if I played these games yesterday. As a parent, your interests become the interests of your children. You watch their TV shows, play their games, cook their favorite foods, read their books, and the list goes on. However, on September 8, 2009, the interests that I cultivated for 7 years also died. In a way, it leaves me floundering now, as I struggle to reinvent or find myself somehow. Certainly hearing and seeing the girls playing on the computer tonight could have made me sad, but instead, the opposite happened. It reminded me of all the computer time Mattie and I had with each other. It reminded me of his laughter, his inquisitiveness, and his desire to sit on my lap and have me right next to him as he played.
 
I end tonight's posting with a message from my friend, Charlie. Charlie wrote, "You have become accustomed to living with adrenaline and cortisol at levels none of us live with around the clock. That changes your body and makes it less sensitive to outside stimuli unless that stimulus is intense. It takes time for the body to understand that it is no longer living in crisis mode, that pumping hormones to push up blood pressure, speed up response time and all the other things that go with response to threats are no longer needed. When you are not intensely focused you feel "flat" because it feels strange without the high levels of stress hormones. This is a normal reaction for anyone who has been through a long term crisis whether it is a prolonged illness or a physical threat that lasts a long time. Perhaps it would be helpful to "retrain" your body through yoga or relaxation exercises just as you are starting to retrain your focus with reading for the book club. I will tell you as a former medical person that although the nurses become attached to all their patients to some degree, there are always a few who really capture your heart. It was very clear that Mattie was one of those for the nurses and staff at Georgetown. You and Peter won a place in their hearts as well for your devoted care to Mattie and your willingness to connect to the staff as well. Although you wrote that you learned from Mattie's illness and death the true meaning of love, we would all have spared you this lesson if we could have. I wish you as always some space in which to breathe, reflect and just be. I hold you gently in my thoughts."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Some years ago when I was looking for a daycare for my children, I visited a daycare that was in a nursing home for Alzheimers Patients. The children and patients interacted on a daily basis, ate together, had music together, etc.., I thought it was a very nice idea.
Lauren