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 18, 2017

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Tuesday, April 18, 2017 -- Mattie died 396 weeks ago today. 

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2005. It is one of my favorite photos I took of Mattie and Peter together. They were in the living room playing with Mattie's plastic food. Peter decided to do a bug face and as you can see Mattie joined right along!!


Quote of the day: There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes. ~ Abraham Lincoln


I got news for President Lincoln..... sometimes the photographer takes BAD photos. I had to get passport photos done today to renew my passport, so I went to CVS. It was an absolutely hysterical scene. The woman I was working with was lovely. She took four different photos. Mainly because I think she was as perplexed as I was with the nightmare results. The lighting was bad, everything is blurry and I left thinking to myself.... if this is really how bad I look, then we have a problem. 

I know in the grand scheme of things and the with our world and the people around us in chaos/killing one another, this photo is not a problem! 


As the Foundation Walk approaches, the details and endless chores compound themselves. I have very little patience with anything else in the months of April and May, until I feel that Mattie Miracle will make its financial goal. It is a lot of stress because besides doing the Foundation work, I also have to raise the money. 

Now I say that, but starting next week, I will do my first art lesson at Mattie's school. This is the seventh year in a row that I have visited the school and worked with a kindergarten class on Matisse and Picasso. These children are the age at which I remember Mattie. Though Mattie would be 15 years old now and in high school, to me he will always be a kindergartner. I have no experience teaching this grade level, but I have the practical experience of raising Mattie, which does guide every lesson I do. Today however, I learned that one of the children in the class lost a mom to cancer. It is a tragic loss for this child and family, and I hear the school is stunned once again. I find cancer of all kinds tragic and even more disheartening that scientists have yet to cure this disease, and in the world of childhood cancer, I can say they have made very little progress in 20 years. Yet what I can say with certainty is this family will be forever scarred and I do believe lives are altered when an important piece of the family dies.   

1 comment:

Margy Jost said...

Vicki,

I actually think your passport picture looks good. We recently renewed ours also using CVS. They pulled a screen down from the ceiling, retook Ken's 3 times, then only took mine once, giving up, I think. What a process, when the picture quality is not that good. I liked yours.

I love the pictures, you post of Peter & Mattie goofing around. They are always fun.

I imagine the stress of your fundraiser can be very trying. Especially today, when everyone puts off until the last minute, signing up for things. I am still talking to people about walking. I also still want to get raffle tickets. Erin should be signed up by end of week

Your classroom lesson sounds amazing. I think this is such a great things that you do each year!!! Art appreciation is so important !