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 6, 2018

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Tonight's picture was taken in September of 2008. Mattie was a month into treatment and as you can see was getting stir crazy in the two by four of a hospital room. That evening, Peter blew up latex gloves and Mattie was doing a puppet show for anyone who was passing by his window. Nurses knew, especially at night, that if Mattie had any energy, he was going to be up to something. Literally one night, around midnight, he sent his remote controlled tarantula down the PICU hallway. On a different night, he even sent his remote controlled car down the hallway with a note taped on it for his nurses. This was the beauty of Mattie!

Quote of the day: But nothing makes a room feel emptier than wanting someone in it. Calla Quinn


I would have to say that September can put Peter and me into a funk. As September 8th quickly approaches, it makes us pause. We pause, because it is hard to believe that 10 years ago we were actively fighting cancer with Mattie. Now 9 years later, we have had to learn how to live life without Mattie. This maybe the hardest lesson and challenge yet. Because it is not something you master. Or you may feel confident that you have found a way through issues, but then someone says something or you are faced with a certain situation, and boom. You are forced yet again to navigate in a world that truly doesn't understand childhood cancer. 

I have many friends all around me whose children have returned to school. My feelings about school are not isolated to just me! On the contrary, many parents who lost a child to cancer also dread hearing about the school year. Most of us don't like hearing about it, seeing back to school photos all over social media, and don't get me started about hearing the pain parents face when children go off to college. 

Now with that said, at heart I am an empathetic person. So I can imagine the sadness of a child leaving home and going to college. I truly can appreciate that and understand how it impacts the whole family's dynamics. But I have to say I am intrigued when people talk to me and describe to me the loneliness, how their child's room is now empty, and well you insert the descriptor! I listen and appreciate the sentiments expressed but I wouldn't be human if in the back of my head I am saying...... but your child is coming back. Mine isn't, and mine will never go to college, or even attend high school. 

I would have to say childhood cancer has a way of dividing a bereaved parent from the rest of the world. Not just on the day your child dies, but continuously and constantly. Every developmental milestone that should be happening for Mattie evokes the feelings of grief again for me. People try to get it, but they can't possibly. Especially as more and more time passes. What I have learned  however over these last 9 years, is how to manage my expectations of others and my reactions to their insensitivity. Of course when I don't think either of these things is going to be possible, then I isolate myself from the situation. At times that is the best solution in order to protect my feelings and to avoid lashing out at others.  

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