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

February 9, 2013

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Saturday, February 9, 2013


Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2009. Mattie was participating in a physical therapy session. Mattie's therapist, Anna, held Mattie upright and helped him raise his hand so that he could use a water gun to squirt Linda (Mattie's childlife specialist). Linda played up her role and got dressed up in a gown, mask, and put a basin on her head to prepare for a soaking. She had all of us laughing hysterically and this inspired Mattie to work through his pain and fears to use his arms and legs. Keep in mind that Mattie wasn't walking independently nor did he get to the hallway by walking. Mattie was wheelchair bound and therefore getting up, out of his chair, standing, taking a few steps, and raising his arms were all big achievements especially in the midst of undergoing chemotherapy.



Quote of the day: There comes a time in life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad, and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is part of life, getting back up is living. ~ Unknown


I received this meaningful quote today and I decided to share it with you because I think its message can resonate with all of us. May all of you find and continue to surround yourselves with those "people who treat you right." This sounds SO simple, but in actuality is quite complex.



I have two photos of Patches to share with you tonight. Patches has some favorite places to stay now. It is either this ottoman, our couch, a living room chair, Mattie's bed, or our bed. Patches is still a beautiful cat despite the fact that her tumor is growing and her right eye is reduced in size.

This is  a picture of our "Sleeping Patches" on her other favorite location to rest, our living room chair.

For several weeks Peter and I have been working on designing a retractable banner to take with us to the conference in Los Angeles. Naturally we do not have access to graphic design programs, so we created the template for the banner in PowerPoint. What I learned however is you can't use a PowerPoint to then create an 8' by 3' retractable banner. The resolution of pictures and text would look terrible. This is where abcimaging (www.abcimaging.com) came in to help me. When Mattie was in kindergarten, I attended his school's weekly chapel. During chapel each Tuesday, I sat between two women, Junko and Luda. My faithful readers know who Junko is..... my friend and our sons were also good friends. Luda and I became friends through chapel and when Mattie was diagnosed with cancer Luda began helping us with all of our signage and banner needs. Her help has never dissipated, in fact, it has only grown. It is thanks to Luda and her company that we have this finished product. Luda's staff worked with me throughout the week, because they couldn't use the PowerPoint we created. Instead, they had to recreate and transform our template into a design program that could produce this fine finished product. So though this banner may look easy to put together, it was not. It took great thought, we tried to make it substantive, and yet visually appealing. When we opened up the box to see the banner I was thoroughly impressed! It is simply beautiful and I am very happy with the way it captures Mattie's spirit and through photos illustrates some of our Foundation accomplishments.

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