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 21, 2013

Sunday, April 21, 2013


Sunday, April 21, 2013

Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2008. That was Mattie's first and LAST spring festival at his school. Honestly if you told me that three months after this photo was taken Mattie would get diagnosed with cancer, I wouldn't have believed it. He seemed so healthy and happy at the time! Pictured with Mattie were his friends Campbell and Livi. I recall taking this photos as if it were yesterday. They were having such a good time together! Mattie and Campbell learned a lot from each other about friendship that year in kindergarten. Now Mattie's friends are in fifth grade and will be going to their 6th spring festival at their school this coming week. It is hard to know that this is happening and that these children are graduating from the lower school soon, and yet Mattie never made it passed kindergarten. He never saw a second spring festival, and in turn, neither have Peter and I.


Quote of the day: There's no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower 

I suspect most parents with healthy children have a hard time understanding my world. After all why should you get it? I wouldn't want to get it or even reflect upon it if Mattie were living. A child dying has to be a parent's worst fear!!! It is life's greatest tragedy and like Eisenhower stated, "things NEVER get back to the way they were" once your child dies. This is simply stated, but very accurate. Of course Eisenhower would know since he lost his first child in 1921, at age 3, from scarlet fever.

When I think about Martin Richard, the eight year old boy who lost his life during the Boston Marathon explosions, I know all too well that this family will never be the same. In addition to this loss, Martin's sister lost a leg and his mom was severely injured in the blast. A family who had the best of intentions to celebrate Patriot's Day on the streets of Boston, after all this is a free society, but in a matter of minutes the beautiful life this family once knew was taken FOREVER. This tragedy gives me pause and causes me to further reflect on my own loss.

This morning as I was sitting at the breakfast table with Peter, it hit me again (as it does on occasion, when I allow myself to reflect upon it) that Mattie is missing from our lives. Even our weekend breakfasts are different now. When Mattie was alive he always wanted homemade waffles or pancakes on the weekend. Since Mattie's death I have never gotten out the flour and my other ingredients to make pancakes or waffles ever again. They died with Mattie.

The scary part of losing someone you love also hit me today! At times as strange as it sounds, my mind can play tricks on me, and I begin to wonder.... was I ever a mom? It seems like another life time ago? As if I were a different person. I desperately struggle to remember the days of being a mom and just the notion that I have to work so hard to remember details produces anger, guilt, and a host of emotions. These are feelings most moms never have to reconcile. But these are feelings I struggle with often and live with daily. When I hear other moms complaining about their harrowing days, I get it naturally (because I too lived that life), but now that I don't have a child, I can sit back and truly evaluate how lucky moms of healthy children are because they have a full and busy life and are given the gift of being able to watch their children grow and have a future.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I came across a link to your organization on FB. What a beautiful thing you are creating out of the loss of your precious son. As the mom of four boys, my heart aches for you. We are all spiritual beings on a journey. This is just one of the stops along the way. Someday, you will be together again. I hope that you will find peace and the happiness you deserve while you wait.