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

April 3, 2017

Monday, April 3, 2017

Monday, April 3, 2017

Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2003, during Mattie's one year old birthday party! Mattie found the party concept a bit overwhelming and there were several moments he and I had to go upstairs to re-group. Nonetheless, Mattie had an ELMO themed party with my parents, his cousins and close friends. Mattie was in LOVE with Elmo. Mattie listened to Sesame Street while playing. As he was a multi-tasker. But when he heard Elmo on the TV, he would stop in his tracks. No playing was going on while Elmo was on the screen. Elmo got Mattie's undivided attention. 


Quote of the day: The only love that I really believe in is a mother’s love for her children. Karl Lagerfeld



It is a sunny 80 degree day in Florida today, but VERY windy!
So windy that the kite surfers were out. 













We visited the Fern Forest Nature Center today. This 247.1-acre Designated Urban Wilderness Area takes its name from the abundance of ferns (more than 30 species) found on the property. It was this botanical richness that attracted the interest of scientists from Florida Atlantic University and Broward College, who in 1979 published an article called "A Tropical Fern Grotto in Broward County, Florida" in the American Fern Journal. "Vegetation in the area is complex, with swamp forest, hammocks, pinelands, and fallow fields," noted the article. The researchers indicated that they had discovered "over 200 species of plants, and the list grows with each visit," and characterized the site as "the last remaining stronghold of ferns in southeastern Florida." In fact, 10 plant communities have been identified within the nature center, making it one of the finest examples of preserved native plant communities in South Florida.

Despite its beautiful description, and I have no doubt it is a Florida treasure for research purposes, Fern Forest wasn't my favorite walking path that we have experienced. You could see no wildlife, yet the boardwalk was interesting but too short. You are surrounded by all sorts of maples, ferns, and vegetation, that changed depending upon how close you were walking near the swamp.  

Get a feeling for the maze like boardwalk? That is me in the distance.  
Our view from the boardwalk.












Look closely in the lower left part of this photo. You will see a black and yellow butterfly, it is called the zebra longwing butterfly. Butterflies were flying all around us in this nature center. 
A native of South Florida, the gumbo limbo tree is big and beautiful, with showy red bark and interesting branches low to the ground. It develops unusual red bark that peels back - reminiscent of sunburned skin - which gives gumbo limbo the nickname of "Tourist Tree."

These trees take up a lot of space with thick, low branches that stay near to the ground, so the tree fits best in a large yard.   

The wood is lightweight, soft and easily-carved - it used to be used to make carousel horses.  But in spite of these characteristics  of the wood, a gumbo limbo is considered one of the most wind-tolerant trees and can withstand hurricane winds.


We walked along the shore line in the water. The water was in the upper 70s, but we were surrounded by seaweed. It washes ashore by the bucket full. 
Can you see all the yellowish stuff? That is seaweed. In front of our hotel, they actually use a tractor to scoop it all up in the morning. But by the afternoon, it is piling right back up. 
This is Hillsboro Lighthouse in the distance. In 1901, Congress authorized the construction of the lighthouse as it stands today. According to the bill, "This light is very much needed by vessels bound through the Florida straits into the Gulf of Mexico or to the island of Cuba. Its erection will complete the chain of lights which extend from Jupiter Inlet to Tortugas, so that the navigator can make one light before losing sight of another."
We found this man-of-war while walking on the beach today. Its venomous tentacles can deliver a painful (and sometimes fatal) sting. Despite its outward appearance, the Portuguese man o' war is not a jellyfish but a siphonophore, which, unlike jellyfish, is not actually a single multicellular organism, but a colonial organism made up of specialized individual animals called zooids or polyps. These polyps are attached to one another and physiologically integrated to the extent that they are unable to survive independently, and therefore have to work together and function like a so-called individual animal.

1 comment:

Margy Jost said...

Vicki, I agree totally with tonight's quote. There is nothing like a mother's love. It is fiercely protective, gives constant unconditional love, there is nothing a mom wouldn't do for their child including giving up their life. These and other ways describe moms relationships with their kids. Thinking of you tonight as it turns midnight and become's Mattie's 15th birthday! You know the deep pain of loosing him to Cancer. I truly am sorry, I do care but nothing can make it better because in your life with Mattie, he only lived to be 7. So wrong and unfair. Your mother love is forever and you are always Mattie's Mom