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

October 19, 2012

Friday, October 19, 2012

Friday, October 19, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2007. Our October weekend adventures with Mattie usually meant going to a fall festival. We practically did every one of them in the area. These fall festival pictures of Mattie always make me laugh. Because when Mattie first entered preschool he was scared to death of any kind of slide. Yet you can see in a short period of time Mattie made huge progress. Peter coaxed Mattie and provided initial assistance on his first hay slide experience, but then Mattie got the hang of it, and had no problem going alone. Despite going alone, I always had Peter walk up to the top with Mattie and I was always waiting on the bottom. I was very protective of Mattie which is ironic, because no matter how diligent I was, there was one thing I couldn't protect him against.  


Quote of the day: It is always the simple that produces the marvelous. ~ Amelia Barr

For the past several days I have been very focused on Foundation work, board work at the Hospital, and even licensure board items. With all these items pulling at me, it is easy to get overwhelmed. But I have managed quite well. One of the activities the Foundation is planning in February is a psychosocial think tank. We are funding 10 mental health professionals from around the Country to attend this think tank held at a National conference in California. The think tank is designed to pull leaders from the psychosocial field together to create and eventually implement a psychosocial standard of care for childhood cancer. I plug away each day, with this vital vision in mind. However, as I have begun to contact the 10 committed professionals this week, I am getting incredible feedback from them of great thanks, appreciation, and admiration of me. I haven't given it much thought, but from their perspective it is novel and refreshing to find someone in the community who runs a Foundation to be such a strong advocate for the work of psycho-oncologists. Typically in the field of childhood cancer, the mantra of many organizations and foundations is to raise money for research! Needless to say the insights from our think tank professionals and their kind words have been marvelous for me. As tonight quote points out the SIMPLE (in this case kind words) produces the MARVELOUS!  

This afternoon, I had the opportunity to spend some time with my friend Mary, who lives in an assisted living facility. I try to visit Mary at least once a week, or more, depending upon my schedule. It is hard to see Mary's decline, especially when I think about what she was able to do back in 2009. This was only three years ago. A lot can happen in three years! Mary is basically paralyzed, unable to walk, feed herself, dress herself, read, and the list goes on. However, one of the most profound changes this year is her inability to talk. Yet even without words we manage. Prior to visiting Mary today, I went to visit the 25 year old I wrote about last week. Some of my readers may recall that Mary's former aide has a 25 year old nephew who was in a swimming pool accident. He hit his head in the pool, and this caused him to become paralyzed from the neck down. Because I am so found of Mary's former aide, I went to visit her nephew today and I also met this young man's mom. The mom was almost shocked that someone she did not know would visit her and care about her son. But she invited me to come visit with her any day.

After this visit I then went to visit Catherine. Catherine lives in the room right next door to Mary. I spent a half an hour with Catherine, and just before I left she told me that my presence made her day. Again the SIMPLE produces the MARVELOUS! After all, I brought no gifts, I provided no entertainment, but what I did provide was my time, my listening ear, and friendship. As one of my friends and colleagues reminded me this week..... truly caring and listening to a friend are rare gifts. So maybe in the end these things I provided to Catherine may be deemed by some to be un"simple!" But to me they come naturally and at the end of the day, knowing I provided support to someone who needed it makes me feel better about myself.

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