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 11, 2017

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2009. Mattie had a visit from his "girlfriend," Charlotte. While in Mattie's room, the kids created on silk screens. Mattie decided to make a portrait of his friend so he could remember her visit. Charlotte has blue eyes and blond hair, and Mattie's signature symbol in every painting or picture he created was the sun. No surprise that the sun became the symbol of the Mattie Miracle Cancer Foundation. Mattie hung many of his silk screens from the ceiling of his hospital room. Not just during one admission, but every hospital stay. We would travel to the hospital using plastic bins and we had one bin filled with Mattie's creations and items that were always used to decorate the hospital room. Needless to say we never traveled to the hospital lightly! 


Quote of the day: If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them. ~ Jodi Picoult

Picoult's quote is quite brilliant and though her book was about a child with an illness, it wasn't about losing a child to cancer. Nonetheless, I do think losing a child to cancer naturally isolates you. Bereaved parents can work on trying to fit in, but they always know they are different and if not careful everyone in the world can be a potential threat and disappointment. It is a matter of learning how to put things into context, adjusting expectations, and on occasion protecting one's self from hurt, insensitivity, and cluelessness. 

Tomorrow signifies the day when Mattie will be dead for as many days as he has been alive. After Sunday, we will need to face that Mattie will be dead longer than he was a part of our lives. That is a sobering reality to say the least for a parent. 

Specifically, Mattie was alive 2714 days (April 4, 2002 - September 8, 2009) and tomorrow will be 2714 days that he has been gone (September 8, 2009 - February 11, 2017). Today we visited Mattie's tree and changed the ribbon around the tree. Removed all Christmas ornaments and instead hung 7 butterflies on the tree for each of Mattie's years he had with us. We also hung many Lego pieces. Mattie was the king of the Legos, so that seemed like the perfect item for people to see as they pass the tree. Despite all the leaves being off this tree, you can't miss it on Mattie's school campus. It has so many colorful items on it, always a ribbon around its trunk, and it also has chimes on it that blow in the wind. Which is why I refer to this tree as the "twinkling tree."

1 comment:

Margy Jost said...

Vicki, Mattie's tree totally stands out even with the leaves gone. I noticed this as we walked in the tree's direction, that even from a distance, you see where you are heading! Twinkling tree is an apt name.
It is heartbreaking to know from you that going forward there are more days not spent with Mattie than you were able to spend with him.
It is also sad to realize the truth that parents whose child has died have to learn a whole new world to navigate without their child that will involve being with people who don't realize that grief has no timeline, child loss is forever loss and that more effort isn't put into remembering how & why people meet & orinally become friends. Of course, we have friends from many experiences in our lives but those we make through our child are on a different level because they are tied at the heart by our child and our friends children. No parent except another one who lives with forever loss can understand the feeling. But maybe all the rest of us should learn to acknowledge this exists and work harder to remember that experiences that continue with a person's child are forever gone for our friend. Maybe then we could share good friendships where more effort would be towards including without hurting or isolating further bereaved parents.