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 20, 2013

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2008 after Mattie's first limb salvaging surgery. That week someone gave Mattie a book entitled, "Stinky Cheese Man." Mattie thought that was down right hysterical! So much so, that it inspired him to create his own stinky cheese man made out of blue foam! It is ironic that last week as I was cleaning out Mattie's book shelves, to donate hundreds of books, I came across "Stinky Cheese Man." It brought me right back to this moment in time.


Quote of the day: The healing power of even the most microscopic exchange with someone who knows in a flash precisely what you're talking about because she experienced that thing too cannot be overestimated. ~ Cheryl Strayed


This afternoon my parents and I went to see the play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I have to admit I never read the novella or even saw the movie with Spencer Tracy. Naturally whether one is familiar with the story or not, in some shape or form, we have all used the term...... Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in our daily lexicon. Especially when we are dealing with people who appear to have two sides to them. This play is all about good versus evil and the conflict this causes inside of us. Yet from my clinical perspective this play is far more complex than this, mainly because the alter ego of our main character, Dr. Jekyll, is drug induced. As if this drug unleashed what could be potentially inside of all of us. A frightening notion really when you consider the main character brutally attacked and killed multiple people in gruesome ways. Are we all really capable of this? If that isn't frightening enough to think about, what is even more perplexing is once Dr. Jekyll stopped using drugs why didn't the evil die away? Needless to say the premise of this play bothered me intensely because what it was trying to imply is that evil is stronger than goodness and will win out every time.

Certainly in our daily lives we see aspects of evil all around us, and yet despite the evil, there are also moments of greatness, kindness, and compassion to help combat this negativity. I believe this is a philosophical difference in how each of us sees the world which is most likely why I gravitate to Disney and Hallmark movies. Goodness must always trump evil! Naturally I know this isn't true in reality, but if we do not have this hope then I frankly think day to day existence becomes impossible.

Here is a synopsis of today's play: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, from the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. A new and shocking version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of depravity, lust, love and horror. On the fog-bound streets of Victorian-era London, Henry Jekyll's experiments with exotic "powders and tinctures" have brought forth his other self—Edward Hyde, a sensualist and villain free to commit the sins Jekyll is too civilized to comprehend. When Hyde meets a woman who stirs his interest, Jekyll fears for her life and decides to end his experiments. But Hyde has other ideas, and so the two sides battle each other in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse to determine who shall be the master and who his slave. With multiple Hydes portrayed by members of the cast.

This play was well acted but I have to say it was confusing at first. Mainly because the character of Mr. Hyde was acted out by every member of the cast. So you would see Dr. Jekyll transform, but instead of that character resuming as Mr. Hyde, another member of the cast would take over. So literally every cast member played two or three different roles in the play. With NO costume or set changes and no intermissions. So you have to really pay attention because the actors are constantly switching parts!

We all left the play feeling DOWN about life and human nature. I am not saying this is not a fact of life depicted in the play, but sometimes seeing it acted out in front of me isn't helpful. After Mattie died I prefer more uplifting stories and stories which inspire you to life not question why you are living. This evening we are meeting a friend and colleague of my dad's who lives in London. We saw John recently in August when we flew to Heathrow. So it is very unusual for me to be seeing him again so soon. Needless to say it is my hope that dinner is a change of pace from the macabre and gruesome of today's play.
 

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