Thursday, March 25, 2021

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2006. Mattie was four years old. That day I took him to the Reston Petting Zoo. A place he loved to go! We posed in front of their big Easter bunny! Mattie loved the small size of this zoo, but he especially loved riding the ponies, the wagon ride through their fields to meet ostriches, and of course feeding the goats. 

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

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 30,066,575
• Number of people who died from the virus: 546,300

Today my friend Mary Ann wrote to me about Beth Parker. As she remembered quite well that Beth interviewed Mattie Miracle twice in 2012! I am deeply saddened to learn that Beth died of cancer on Monday. Another incredible person taken too soon by this horrible disease. Beth was a gifted reporter, with a compassionate heart. Each story she did on Mattie Miracle was powerful. What upsets me is we never got these interviews on a DVD or electronic file. So they are lost in the ether, unless I contact and pay for these interviews through Fox 5. 

Former FOX 5 reporter Beth Parker dies from cancer:

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/former-fox-5-reporter-beth-parker-dies-from-cancer

Beth interviewed us in May and November of 2012. In May, she met us at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and highlighted our work and our Snack and Item Cart. 

This was a group photo we took together! Sitting from left to right are: Dr. Aziza Shad, and Jess Abrams (at the time the child life specialist we funded).

Standing from left to right was: Beth, me, Jey (Mattie's buddy), Nelson (Beth's cameraman), and Peter. 

On November 15, 2012, Beth came to our home to cover the Candy Drive. She did a phenomenal piece for Fox 5. You should know that after Beth learned about our Candy Drive, she used to collect candy for us in her neighborhood and then would hand deliver it to us each year until she moved to California! Who does that? Beth! To me, this showed her character, love of people, and commitment to her community. 

On the November 15, 2012 blog, I wrote:

I spent 90 minutes with Beth and her wonderful cameraman, Steve. I loved Steve's creativity and I truly think the candy inspired both of them. Beth and Steve greeted me today with a bag of candy that they contributed to the drive, and it is their candy that you can see me sorting in the news piece. They thought of everything! As I told Beth, talking about Mattie helps to keep his memory alive and this is VERY therapeutic. After all, if you could see how much candy we sorted, you would either think something is profoundly wrong with us or that it is a labor of love. Which it is!

 

I found this on the internet. Someone asked Beth this question........

You had a long tenure in journalism — 17 years. What did you love about it?

I love people. Telling people’s stories has always been compelling to me. They joke at work that I like talking to strangers. I came up doing general assignments and eventually lots of investigative reporting. I covered three presidential inaugurations, I covered 9/11 first from D.C. and then from New York for our D.C. station. I had a front-row seat to a lot of the huge current events that shaped our nation in my adult lifetime, and I feel very fortunate for that.

Toward the end of my journalism career, though, I was doing more and more feature reporting because not only was that interesting to me, but I found that people weren’t getting enough of that. These weren’t stories about famous people; they were stories about regular people and seemed to resonate so much more with viewers.