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

October 14, 2020

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Tonight's picture was taken on Halloween of 2003. Mattie was a year and half old and it was his first time going trick or treating. Back then, Mattie's cousins lived in Washington, DC. So we got together with them and went from house to house. As you can see, we stopped at one house very decked out for the occasion. While others were intrigued, Mattie was less than thrilled. 


Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.

  • number of people diagnosed with the virus: 7,891,674
  • number of people who died from the virus: 216,406


One thing I notice now more than ever, is people around us seem eager to talk. Living in the city, makes it harder to form solid connections with neighbors, and making meaningful friendships is challenging. It isn't unusual for people to be walking about glued to their phones and plugged in to purposefully avoid conversations. Yet now that we are into month 8 of COVID lock downs, people seem far more amendable to connect. I saw this in spades both on Roosevelt Island today and in our commons areas of our complex. In fact, one of our neighbors was just sitting outside in the sun, waiting for others to pass him by to have a conversation. So though I worry that the way we relate to each other will be profoundly changed by COVID, what I noticed today gave me hope. Human beings need to talk, we thrive on interactions, and we are social creatures at heart. I guess today inspired me to see that even COVID can't change our true nature.

I am happy to report my dad doesn't have shingles. I would be very surprised if he had it, given he was vaccinated. This is the challenge of being far away and receiving photos. On top of everything else, we are working on updating my parent's wills and durable power of attorney documents. In a way, it seems like it would be easier starting from ground zero, then trying to revise their current documents. You would think it would be EASY to find a lawyer to work with us on this. My parent's original attorney who crafted their estate documents went missing in action. We contacted him in August, and just today (two months later), we actually had a conversation with him. Meanwhile, during these two months of waiting for a response, I reached out to two other attorneys. All I can say is wow! I got the run around with one. So much so that given the level of dysfunction I was experiencing, I did not feel comfortable sharing any personal information with the office. At the end of the day, I learned that NOT ALL LAWYERS are created equal. 

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