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

September 17, 2016

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Tonight's picture was taken in September of 2005. This was a typical Fall weekend occurrence for Mattie and Peter. Peter wanted to share with Mattie the beauty of being on the water and also fishing. Mattie loved the experience and this bonding time with his dad. On occasion Mattie would invite me along and of course I was always photographing the moment to capture it in time. 


Quote of the day: I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons.  Will Rogers




Today Peter, Sunny, and I took a car trip over the Bay Bridge to Queenstown. A place I never even heard of, which is over an hour from DC! Why did we go there? To meet Rose! Rose is a friend of a friend. Rose rescues collies and boards them in her home. She is a widow, loves her dogs, and lives in a part of Maryland that is so serene, peaceful, and green. A night and day difference from DC. We passed many corn fields as we drove to Rose's home.

Rose is a very loving lady. I have been having email communications with her for two months now. She occasionally sends me photos of her rescues and shares a story about them! One day, Rose decided to check out the footer of my email, which lists Mattie Miracle's website. Rose went to the website on her own, learned about Mattie and the work we do. She then wrote to me and told me she wanted to make an in kind donation to the Foundation. We picked up from her today a ton of beautiful hand knitted blankets today as well as trinket baskets that children in the hospital will appreciate. 

But I think the highlight of the day was watching Sunny run around UNLEASHED in her fenced backyard with her two collies. Frankly I have never seen this side of Sunny. Typical he is calm, gentle, and sedate. But when in a group of dogs, he becomes the leader and has NO PROBLEM asserting his authority in a playful way. He had a great time and I so wish I captured these moments on camera. They just happened too quickly. 


After visiting Rose, we went to visit our friend Lori who lives about 30 minutes away from Rose. Lori had two girl dogs with her today and Sunny totally loved playing with them in Lori's backyard. I loved watching the difference in Sunny's play style with girl dogs versus boy dogs. There was a dramatic difference. But he had fun with both! We could see that he is a runner, agile, and a true herder!



Lori then took us to her local Amish Market. What an amazing experience. I have never gone to an Amish Market before, but the products, freshness, and quality were remarkable. Lori bought Sunny this wonderfully big bone stuffed with marrow for dogs. This was the sight of Sunny working on his bone once he got home. He was transfixed and LOVED it. It is a bone that apparently lasts for months! 

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