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

June 9, 2014

Monday, June 9, 2014

Monday, June 9, 2014

Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2003, during our first trip with Mattie to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Peter and I loved going to the Outer Banks and we began this tradition soon after we got married. This photo is one of my FAVORITES! What you can't tell was it was a VERY HUMID day! Peter had a smile on his face but literally he carried Mattie up 200 stairs and then back down the Currituck Beach Lighthouse! I am not sure who was more priceless! Check out Mattie? Looking ALL the way up!!! I have always loved lighthouses and I tried to pass that love onto Mattie. I figured the earlier we started introducing him to lighthouses the better a chance I had for him to like them too!


Quote of the day: Self-improvement comes mainly from trying to help others. ~ Sir John Templeton


A view from our balcony this morning! It was a cloudy day, but none the less, even a cloudy day by the beach is a better day than a cloudy day for me in Washington, DC. There is more to see and hear at the shore and it is peaceful. I would prefer to see the sun, but since Peter alerted me to clouds this week, I tried to mentally prepare myself. 

Peter captured this photo of our dunes and the waves crashing by them. 












After a slow start to the day, we drove to Roanoke Island and the town of Manteo. The history of Manteo is storied and deep, beginning with the town name's itself. "Manteo" was a chief in the local Roanoke Island community of Native Americans who made a long trip oversees as an ambassador of goodwill to the late 16th Century English explorers. Chief Manteo was, in fact, one of the first American residents to travel to Europe as an honored and distinguished guest. Manteo is the home to one of the world's longest running historical mysteries, specifically, the disappearance of the Lost Colony. 

In 1597, after a series of surface explorations, including one commandeered by Sir Walter Raleigh himself, a new colony was sent to Roanoke Island to settle and begin the English expansion of the New World. Led by John White, the colonists arrived in Manteo and quickly set to building and creating a new settlement. In the process of building a new civilization, John White's own daughter gave birth to the country's first English child, Virginia Dare, for which the Outer Banks home county is named. Months later, however, supplies had run short, and John White had to make a hesitant trip home to England to resupply the camp. Once in Europe, White found himself bogged down by both government inquires and bad weather, and it wasn't until 1590 that he was able to make the long voyage back to Manteo to bring help to his colony, his daughter, and his new granddaughter. Sadly, when he returned, he found the entire colony had been virtually wiped off the map, with only a minor clue to their fate carved into two neighboring trees: the words "Cro" and "Croatan." Many modern historians take this as a sign that the colonists, either as a desperate move to escape starvation or outrun threats from neighboring Native Americans, relocated to the southern beaches of Hatteras Island, where the Croatan Native Americans thrived peacefully. However, after long coastline explorations, John White found no sign of his daughter, grandchild, or any other living soul of that first original Roanoke Island Colony.


Manteo is a charming and sleepy town! Lined with shops, restaurants and galleries! It also is the home of the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse.

Roanoke Marshes Light is unlike its other Outer Banks counterparts, in that it not an original lighthouse. Instead, it is a replica of the original lighthouse that was constructed in 1877 at the southern entrance of the Croatan Sound in Wanchese, to help both passing sailors and local fishermen find their way to port. This lighthouse was actually the third to carry the name "Roanoke Marshes Light" as the first two, also constructed in the 1800s, were lost soon after they were constructed and put into service.

This is Downtown Manteo in the backdrop of this photo. Along my journey today, I met another "Nancy," in my life. My good friend Nancy in New York would get a kick out of this notion. The Nancy I met today moved to North Carolina from Connecticut years ago and has a pottery studio in Manteo. Her studio and store is called Nancyware! I had a good time chatting with her and checking out all her unique creations and learning about her art form. 


At lunch time, Peter and I ate at a local HOT SPOT! It is SMALL place but HOPPING! Poor Richard's Sandwich Shop was started in July of 1984. The Restaurant's basic goal was to serve it's customers, who then were mostly county employees, home cooked daily specials and sandwiches made with only the finest deli meats for a simple price. Back then, Poor Richard's was only open for breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday. This was because on the weekends, the county employees were not around and the town was usually empty. During the Summer Months, Poor Richard's would serve only lunch to the few customers that would dare venture off the main road to the Manteo waterfront; and that was only Saturday!  Throughout the 20 plus years of operations, Poor Richard's has evolved into a true Manteo Landmark.


The beauty of Manteo is all around you! Not just in the architecture of the buildings. But in the plantings that surround you! Outside one of the antique stores was this glorious bush of jasmine
and a lace cap hydrangea bush! In composition together with the American flag. The colors along with the fragrance were intoxicating and were deserving of a photograph. 








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