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

August 25, 2014

Monday, August 25, 2014

Monday, August 25, 2014

Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2007. We took Mattie to one of his favorite places, The George C. Page Museum, where the LaBrea tar pits are in Los Angeles. Behind Mattie is a tar pit with a model of a Woolly Mammoth trapped in it. Mattie loved learning about the tar pits, the fossil collections, and the research that continues on location.  


Quote of the day: Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. ~ Pablo Picasso


This weekend Peter sent me this photo to let me know he was thinking of me! I LOVE sunflowers! Did I always love sunflowers? I am not so sure! Sunflowers were given to me by Team Mattie when Mattie was sick with cancer. They became an important symbol to me of hope and friendship! Friends gave them to me to try to cheer me up and to let me know that they cared about us under the worst possible circumstances and conditions. I will never forget that feeling! Though Mattie is no longer with us the feeling these flowers evoke is alive and well within me. When I see sunflowers they remind me of the time Mattie was alive, when we were battling cancer together, and when we were surrounded by our care community! Therefore to me this will forever be a special flower. A flower that symbolizes Mattie, hope, love, and community. Basically it is NOT JUST A FLOWER to me. 

My parents and I went out and did some chores today and we also bought some flowers to plant in the front and backyard. We got a row of hydrangeas which I will plant over the course of this week! It is supposed to be in the upper 90's this week and Los Angeles has a watering restriction!!! Since they have had little to NO RAIN! So keeping anything green here is a real feat!




This evening we are going out to dinner with friends of my parents! I haven't seen these particular friends since my wedding day! So needless to say this is a LONG TIME AGO for me. I mentioned in last night's blog that my parents and I went to Calabasas yesterday. I explained that when I was in high school I visited Calabasas frequently to visit my parent's friends! Well it turns out the friends I was talking about are the friends we are visiting with this evening. They no longer live in Calabasas but in Northern California. Which is why I rarely see them! They called last night and are in town! It is just a coincidence that I am here while they are here, since this rarely happens! It seems to me that they knew me a lifetime ago when I had just gotten married! Now I am not only married and had a child, but I had a child WHO DIED! I am a very different person and to me it is hard to meet people who haven't evolved with me. I can certainly have these gatherings, it is just harder. 

I would say it is challenging for a grieving parent to know how to exist in the every day world at times and to know how to re-engage with people who once knew us. The awkwardness goes two ways. It isn't only the griever who has issues, many times it is friends who do not know how to be a part of our lives any more either. Sometimes friends find it easier to just give us time and space, or decide to give us time and space out of respect. But unfortunately with time and space, what happens is the creation of a very large divide between friends that I have found can not be easily repaired. 

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