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

May 8, 2017

Monday, May 8, 2017

Monday, May 8, 2017

Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2009, at the "Mattie March." Which was an event held in Mattie's honor at his school. The event united all of our support communities together, and this event is what served as the launching point for the Mattie Miracle Walk & Family Festival after Mattie died. Pictured with Mattie is Bob Weiman, aka The Magic Man. Bob is the head of Mattie's lower school and while Mattie was undergoing treatment Bob came to visit Mattie almost weekly and with each visit taught Mattie a magic trick. Magic became an important part of Mattie's hospital life because it taught him skills others around him did not have. Mattie performed for nurses and others, and magic gave Mattie a sense of accomplishment and self confidence. At the Mattie March, Mattie and Bob performed some tricks together (as you see here). Bob was holding something that looked like a jar of peanut butter. However, Bob unofficially named the trick, "the Mattie Brown." Mattie loved this peanut butter trick and Bob performs it at every Foundation Walk. Bob is one of the traditions we have at the Walk. Others may not know this, but Peter, my parents, and I do (and of course Bob!). 


Quote of the day: If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. ~ Fred Rogers


I think Mister Rogers' quote is so poignant and truly gets at my experience with teaching session two to kindergarten students today. Two weeks ago, I went to Mattie's school to do an art lesson to six year olds about Picasso. I have been doing this series for seven years now. But my first session, was challenging to put it mildly, so I wasn't sure what today would hold. But I would have to say what the children taught me today, was exactly what Rogers described...... every interaction with someone does leave an impression. We may not be able to see or feel it at first. I thought my first session was a disaster with this group of students because I couldn't connect with them. But today was different and the one student who troubled me the most last time, handed me a gift today. She made a book (as the photo shows) of her art work for me and wanted me to have it. I was actually flawed because this seemed like a night and day experience from our first interaction together. 

Today's session was on Matisse. I recapped the previous session we had together and then gave talked with them for a few minutes about Matisse. The children then saw this cartoon story which is only a few minutes long on Matisse.................https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s37OoBXkYAc

As Matisse aged and developed cancer (which I did not tell the students), he became weak and wheelchair bound. However, that did not stop Matisse from creating! He migrated away from painting to painting with paper..... cutouts (as the photo shows). So the activity the children worked on today was designing their own paper cutouts. They were given paper and could cut any shapes they wanted and arranged the pieces on a board. Each of the 12 creations were SO different. In fact, the children really came to life as they imagined, created, and talked to one another while creating. 


This little boy created a bowl of spaghetti. Rather clever!
 This little boy created a flower. 
This little girl created a cutout of herself swimming. 
This little girl created a seascape featuring turtles and the green tower is a telescope to look under the water. 
This girl created a cupcake with a birthday candle on top!
This little boy was the first to do the 3-d concept today and then others followed suit. But his structures represent a duck with a green hat, a pink person and blue flag. In essence this is true Matisse, because Matisse never represented an object with its actual or realistic color. So for example, Matisse could represent a banana in purple or black (but probably NOT yellow). It just depended upon how he felt about the object. 
This little boy created a pink person and in the tube, were "brain parts."
 A group view of many of the creations!
Of course I never walk around Mattie's school without visiting his tree. His tree is in FULL bloom right now. 
These are the beautiful yellowwood flowers on Mattie's tree. The tree blooms every year around the Foundation's Walk. I view that as another Mattie sign!

1 comment:

Margy Jost said...

Vicki, I love Fred Rogers! I know he has died but for me, he remains present tense because I will never let go of everything, I learned from him, a complete stranger, yet I always felt a friend.
I am glad your second experience with these children left a positive feeling with you. Your work with them is amazing. They certainly learned the lesson, you taught on Matisse. Their art work was beautiful. It is very touching that the little girl drew you something. That is one if the wonderful things, I loved about working with children - their unpredictability. I always felt it took weeks to really know a child because they often surprised me with their interests!

Mattie's picture with his magician friend is precious. The further you get into posting pictures from 2009, my instinctive protective feelings become very strong. I always want to believe it will get better even when I know it didn't . When I worked, each child was special in their own way but the kids, I saw the most had their own room in my heart. That is still true today!!!

I really enjoyed reading your blog