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

August 20, 2016

Friday, August 19, 2016

Friday, August 19, 2016

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2008. Mattie was staying with my parents in Los Angeles, while I went to a conference. When I got back from the conference, we toured around town together. This was Mattie at the Arboretum. We walked through the bamboo and as you can see Mattie loved it. Mattie liked the maze like feeling that bamboo produced and in fact he was intrigued by bamboo even as a baby! Whenever I go to the Arboretum now and pass this same patch of bamboo, I can't help but think of Mattie and this moment in time!





Quote of the day: Never let a day pass that you will have cause to say, I will do better tomorrow. ~ Brigham Young


This is the view outside my parent's windows. It is a very different sight from my life in Washington, DC. Here it is a very peaceful, quiet, and somewhat isolated.
Yet within minutes of driving, you are right in the heart of the city of Burbank, made famous by Johnny Carson.









This is what Burbank is known for... motion picture studios....... Warner Bros., Universal Studios, Disney, and NBC.

There is NO doubt you are in Los Angeles, when surrounded by palm trees and no humidity.
This is the view of the city
of Burbank from up in the Hills.




The city of Burbank.














My mom and I went to walk around Fashion Square Mall today. Of course it NO LONGER looks like this. This was how the mall used to look like from the 1960s through 1980s. In fact, when I was in high school, the mall was still like this.... an outdoor mall. Now of course it is two stories tall and enclosed. It looks like any other mall, which is unfortunate. However, I remember it when it was simpler and truly community oriented. Some things are not progress or an improvement.

But what truly stayed with me today were the characters and attitudes of those around me at the mall. I never felt like I fit into Southern California as a teenager, but now as an adult, this feeling is even more heightened. To me it is a very different culture here and what I observed at the mall today was what I would call age discrimination and distain. Many of the sales clerks are twenty somethings and they made me feel as if I did not exist or was even worth paying attention to. I have very little tolerance for this attitude or to feel disrespected. All I can say is one particular sales clerk was lucky I was with my mom, because if I were alone she wouldn't have known what hit her. This is a feeling I have NEVER experienced in Washington, DC and though I have issues with the DC area at times, it is my hope that this Los Angeles materialistic mind set remains here.

1 comment:

Margy Jost said...

Vicki,
Truly a powerful Post - one that should be in an editorial page of an LA newspaper. It is true when we travel, there are places, we go, where I feel as if we don't exist. It is an age situation then too. While I am glad your Mom was with you so you truly get to,spend time together, I wish in that moment, you would have had the chance to give this person somethings to consider. In the DC area, some clerks that take care of my purchases are older than I am, always leaving me wondering what their circumstances are.
Also what some consider progress, I don't consider improvement at all.

I love all of the pictures of Mattie, you post! However, especially the ones with you & Peter. I know they are your treasures. Thank you for sharing them