Thursday, June 6, 2019

Thursday, June 6, 2019

Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2006. Peter took Mattie to see a Day out with Thomas. That is Thomas the Tank Engine, from the book and TV series. They went on this adventure with Mattie's preschool buddy Zachary and his dad. Mattie had a great time and I am so happy Zachary's dad captured my two on the train. 


Quote of the day: There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, ‘There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or less like a head cold – with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer. ~ Barbara Kingsolver


It is almost three weeks since the Mattie Miracle Walk & Family Festival occurred. I would say starting hours after the Walk is finished, I begin to feel down. As time progresses, the sad and depressed feeling multiplies. This has happened to me with every Walk! So I am more prepared now when it happens, than I certainly was back in 2010. 

I think there is a lot wrapped up in the finality of the Walk. First of which is exhaustion. I would say for a month before the Walk takes place, I am working around the clock. I expend a great deal of energy putting this event together and then it requires an equal amount of effort to put things back in storage and administratively process the Walk. So tiredness contributes to the down feeling. But then there is a void, once the event is over. Not that I don't have other things to do, I do, but the Walk is all encompassing. Also timed with the completion of the Walk is summer vacation. I am beginning to see children out of school and of course hearing families making plans for these summer months. All of these things are truly cumulative for me and yesterday I was in a funk or a state. I am not sure today is much better, but tomorrow we head to South Carolina for a week. 

These photos are the last ones I will be sharing from this year's Walk. We had about 110 posters at the event. I am very grateful that our friend's company, ABC Imaging, prints all our posters for free. These posters are beautiful and we recycle them from year to year. 

This photo of Mattie is part of our Forever Heroes series. We have 70 posters, each featuring the beautiful face of a child who died from cancer. About three years ago, we ran a Facebook campaign asking for families to consider sharing their child'd photo with us. We do not use these beautiful faces to market our Foundation or our services. The photos are used to bring awareness to the fact that 5 children in the USA die a DAY from childhood cancer. Though the Walk is fun, we believe it is our job to also make it meaningful and to share information with the public about the psychosocial impact of the disease on children and families. 

This is what the Forever Heroes posters look like at the Walk. It is an arc of photos, and I was told this year by several of my volunteers that this photo series moved many of our walkers. 

We had 28 posters this year that highlighted our 10th anniversary accomplishments. This is a few of them. We placed them around the track, so walkers couldn't miss them. 

The posters you see on hurdles, were our 10th anniversary posters that I highlighted above. 

This series of posters highlighted our sponsors, our 10th anniversary accomplishments and the event schedule. 

Along the chain link fence, we placed posters that highlight our psychosocial services, our research, as well as posters that highlighted psychosocial facts about childhood cancer. 

Two such posters are below. An awareness poster about the reality of childhood cancer and one about the psychosocial impact of the disease.