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 2, 2019

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Tonight's picture was taken on October 1, 2006. Mattie was four years old and doing what he loved to do... build! One thing about Mattie was he loved to be close to me. If I was in one room, he needed to be in that room. If I switched rooms, so did he! So that particular moment in time, I was working in the kitchen. Needless to say, Mattie's philosophy was.......have tinker toys, will travel! 









Quote of the day: To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated. James P. Carse


In October of 2017, I attended The International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP) conference in Washington, DC. I remember writing about one of the sessions I attended on the blog. Basically a researcher presented her study on the long term fate of parents of healthy children and parents of children who survived cancer. She was very clear that soon after treatment ends parents of children with cancer return to normal, or in some cases better than normal. Meaning in comparison to parents of healthy children, these parents reported lower mental health concerns. I couldn't understand her results which indicated that the trauma experienced by parents is not significant at predicting issues into the future. 

The point of me rehashing this story was because I wasn't the only one who questioned this researcher at this session. There was another parent advocate there and she was equally as troubled. After the session was over, this other advocate came over to talk with me. She is from Iceland and we have been Facebook friends ever since. Today, my fellow bereaved parent reached out to me to let me know she is in the USA and plans to come to DC tomorrow. She wanted to meet up with me. 

Given the incredible journey she has taken to get to DC, I couldn't pass up this opportunity. So tomorrow she will be visiting with me for most of the day. Which meant that I had to reshuffle my schedule and also straight up our home, as not everyone is used to cat and dog fur. I also baked some goodies for her, because to me when someone from another Country comes to visit, you want to make it memorable! 

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