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

February 24, 2013

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Tonight's picture was taken in February of 2009. Mattie's friends created Valentine's for him and also gave him this HUGE lollipop. Mattie was intrigued by the lollipop and he was trying to show me in this photo that the candy was roughly the size of his head!


Quote of the day: Maybe if you can’t get somebody out of your head, they’re supposed to be there. ~ Unknown


I love tonight's quote and I believe it is SO true! Mattie is firmly implanted in my head and will always be there and should be there! This morning, I walked the track in my parent's neighborhood. My mom and I have done this six out of the seven days I have been here. Walking in the sunshine is a wonderful way to start the day. I also find walking and moving helps my nerve pain. It is when I stop moving do I notice the numbness and pain! While at the track, we were surrounded by boys practicing with their little league teams! I watched moms sitting around and observing the sport, I noticed dads out in the field coaching and throwing balls back and forth to their boys, and of course the whole scene made me reflect. These are all experiences Peter and I will never have with Mattie. That may sound like a trite observation but it is observations like this that are our daily reality.

While at the track, I also noticed a beautiful monarch butterfly flying around. Mind you I have been at this track almost everyday this week and never saw a butterfly. But today in the midst of all the little league kids, a sign from Mattie presented itself. I do not think this was by coincidence. I want to think that Mattie was on this field with me today.

My parents and I saw a play last night entitled, Stepping out, and a play today entitled, I'll be back before midnight. Two very different plays, but both focused upon the complexities of human dynamics. Stepping out was about a group of eight adults who register to take a tap class. The group had a range of dancing abilities but part of the comedy was watching this group learning to dance. In the midst of learning to dance, we got a glimpse into the lives of each of the dancers and what truly motivated them to come to the class. Some came to escape their husbands, some to build confidence in themselves, and others to make a friend and become invested in something for themselves. The way the life stories interweaved was beautiful and to see a group of eight go from sloppy dancers to a coordinated team at the end was worth the price of admission. It made you want to get up and dance. Today's play was a psychological thriller, whose main character had just been released from a mental institution. She was recovering from depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. Needless to say, upon release her husband took her to a remote house in the country to recuperate. Yet his motives are anything but pure and to add insult to injury the husband invites his sister to visit the house. His recovering wife and sister do not get along and the sister is one of the main reasons that contributed to the wife's breakdown in the first place. It was a suspenseful play which had all of us in the audience trying to predict what would happen next and who was going to get killed in the end.

I am signing off from Los Angeles. Tomorrow I head back to Washington, DC. So the next posting will be from home! I say good-bye to the sun, grass, trees, flowers, bunnies, and of course the LA Cappuccinos!
 

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