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

November 15, 2012

Thursday, November 15, 2012


Thursday, November 15, 2012

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2006. That Christmas we took Mattie to Florida and celebrated the holidays with my parents. Mattie loved Florida, the water, draw bridges, and building on the beach. I am so happy we had these times together. This afternoon, Beth Parker, a Fox 5 News reporter interviewed me and asked to see pictures of the three of us together. The irony is around our home we have a ton of Mattie pictures, but not many on display of the three of us. So tonight I was inspired to find a photo to post on the blog that illustrated what my family used to look like. 


Quote of the day: Love is something that if you give it away, give it away, you end up having more. ~ Malvina Reynolds


About three nights ago I had a dream. In my dream, I was surrounded by candy, not UNLIKE in my real life. However, in the dream I decided to send an email to Beth Parker, who is a Fox 5 newscaster. Beth has covered Mattie Miracle events twice already and I like the way Beth reports a human interest story. That may sound easy to do, but it truly isn't. She does it with sensitivity and skill. In any case, in my dream, I wrote to Beth to tell her about our candy drive. I wanted her to know what we were up to, with the hopes that she would think this was a news worthy story. When I woke up from the dream, I was confused because I wasn't sure if I had really sent the email to Beth or whether I just dreamt about it. Nonetheless, I decided to take a chance and try to make my dream a reality. So two days ago I emailed Beth.

This morning after my zumba class, I received a voice mail from Beth. She wanted to come to our home today and "talk candy." Naturally I was VERY excited, but after an hour of exercising, I did not look like I would be ready to go on TV. I quickly put that notion aside and did the interview anyway. Amazing how cancer has changed my life and priorities. When I got home from zumba, I quickly reorganized the candy, and cleaned up boxes and bags which were EVERYWHERE.

I spent 90 minutes with Beth and her wonderful cameraman, Steve. I loved Steve's creativity and I truly think the candy inspired both of them. Beth and Steve greeted me today with a bag of candy that they contributed to the drive, and it is their candy that you can see me sorting in the news piece. They thought of everything! As I told Beth, talking about Mattie helps to keep his memory alive and this is VERY therapeutic. After all, if you could see how much candy we sorted, you would either think something is profoundly wrong with us or that it is a labor of love. Which it is!
 
It was a very exciting day for us and tomorrow Peter and I head off to the Hospital for Sick Children in DC to give an hour long presentation about the impact of a childhood cancer diagnosis on a child and a family. Our audience is health care providers. We have been working on this presentation for weeks and hopefully tomorrow it will sound coherent.

I invite you all to visit the Fox 5 link below to read Beth's story and see the news footage. I also welcome and encourage you to leave a comment below the video on the Fox 5 page. I think it is important for Beth and Fox 5 to hear your feedback!
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/20112110/cancer-patient-mattie-remembered-with-candy-for-others

No comments: