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

April 19, 2018

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2009. Mattie was home and in between treatments. That day we wheeled Mattie down to the National Mall. We fed the ducks and tried to have a picnic on the lawn. Peter snapped this photo of us and I remember this snapshot in time like it were yesterday. 


Quote of the day: Change is inevitable. Change is constant. ~ Benjamin Disraeli


You maybe asking... what is this a photo of?! I took this photo at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital today, as I was on campus to push our snack cart around the pediatric units. 

The Hospital is undergoing a major construction project to build a whole new surgery center. In doing so, they are tearing down the brick building you are seeing in the background. 

To me this is like destroying a piece of Mattie's treatment history. Mattie and I went to this building multiple times. For all of his hearing tests (which weren't always a positive experience, as Mattie's treatment permanently affected his hearing of higher pitched sound) as well as all of Mattie's outpatient meetings with his psychiatrist. I remember wheeling Mattie around in that cavernous building as well as toward the end hearing a story his therapist told me. 

Mattie and his psychiatrist did a lot of play therapy. Many times Mattie gravitated to playing with a toy house. Apparently in his play scenarios the dolls represented Mattie and all his friends in the hospital. However, toward the end of Mattie's life, his play scenario was different. The Mattie doll refused to go into the house to play with his doll friends. When the psychiatrist asked him why, Mattie basically said he was different and could no longer play with them. In fact he said something like.... ghosts don't live in houses. On that day, I learned through play therapy that Mattie understood that he was dying. 


In this open lot, which once served as a parking lot for people with disabilities, a new surgery center is under construction. I can't tell you how many times Peter and I walked through this lot to get to the brick building. On the ground floor of that building, was the only decent restaurant on campus. We waited in that restaurant for HOURS as Mattie endured three major surgeries. Some surgeries were over 12 hours in duration. I even took Mattie to this restaurant once as a treat for enduring a two hour bone scan. Various parts of the Hospital campus mean something to me, as I am sure this is the case for other patients/families as well. Yet change and progress march forward, while I am stuck in the past. Which is why I am taking photos of this space before it becomes unrecognizable. 

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