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

March 14, 2018

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2004. Mattie was almost two years old and as you can see he and Peter were having a major play session. Cars and other toys were all over and naturally why not also incorporate a large umbrella into the scene. Peter's umbrella had a way to peek out between the layers, which intrigued Mattie. To me this made for a whimsical photo. 


Quote of the day: Caring can be learned by all human beings, can be worked into the design of every life, meeting an individual need as well as a pervasive need in society. Mary Catherine Bateson


I went this afternoon to push the Mattie Miracle snack and item cart at the hospital. As I went from room to room in three units, I had the opportunity to witness both the caring and insensitivities of hospital personnel. You would think that being back in the physical space of the hospital would set me off, or how about passing all the rooms Mattie received treatment? Certainly I acknowledge those feelings in some way, but what triggered me at today's visit was observing the hospital food service delivering dinner. Why? Because this person was coming into the units to deliver dinner at 4:20pm! It was a ridiculous time to deliver trays of food. 

I ran into Mattie's favorite HEM/ONC nurse and I observed her talking to the woman from food service who was pushing the dinner cart. She explained why delivering food to children at 4:20pm wasn't appropriate and that she should consider delivering food to the adult units first. After all, if you feed a child at 4:20pm, it is a LONG night without food until the morning. I have to remember that most families aren't as lucky as I was to have food delivered to us daily. Most parents can't leave their child's beside looking for food, and this is a problem because nights are LONG in a hospital. There is not peace! With vital checks every 4 hours, noise constantly in the hallways and bright lights. It is amazing that people go to a hospital because they are sick, because in reality the environment is toxic to healing.

Despite trying to rationalize with this food service person, she kept on rolling in her cart and began delivering food to families. It is observing this highly selfish and insensitive behavior that stayed with me tonight. In the midst of all the kindness we received when Mattie was ill, we also received a lot of what I observed today. This "I don't care" demeanor!! In fact, what I fear the most if getting sick and having to enter a hospital is contending with people like this! 

There are a great deal of people who work in a hospital setting, who truly shouldn't be there. They have no regard for fear, human frailty, and forget about compassion. I have a feeling if some of these people had to live in a hospital for a week, it would be SUCH OUTSTANDING sensitivity training, that observing what I did this afternoon would be a rarity. This food service person was on her own time and with her own agenda, totally disengaged from the environment she was working in and to the suffering around her. The families made no impression on her and this left me terribly sad because I know what it is like to be at the mercy of these clueless and heartless individuals. 

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