Mattie's Blog and his Fight Against Osteosarcoma

Thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive!

Dear Mattie Blog Readers,

It means a great deal to me that you take the time to write and to share your thoughts, feelings, and reflections on Mattie's battle and death. Your messages are very meaningful and help support me through very challenging times. I am 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 have stopped writing on September 9, 2010. However, like my journey with grief there is so much that 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 me, and most importantly thank you for keeping Mattie's memory alive.

As Mattie would say, Ooga Booga (meaning, I LOVE YOU)! Vicki

November 7, 2021

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2003. Mattie was one and half years old and we took him pumpkin picking at a Fall festival. Mattie just gravitated to pumpkins and things that were orange. No surprise that his Foundation color is orange! Mattie was the one that introduced me to eating pumpkin, as prior to him I truly did not like the taste. But he loved it and therefore over time, I too grew to appreciate this cute orange fruit.

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

Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 46,480,822
Number of people who died from the virus: 754,326

I am trying to get as much done with the house before I leave for Los Angeles in a few weeks. Today we started to hang up some of our photographs in our bedroom. Seems fitting that we have a butterfly, the sun, and the moon closest to us. There are 14 other photographs that Peter has taken that arrived in the mail today. So next weekend, hopefully we can get them up on the walls. I figure why frame art, when Peter has captured so many beautiful memories on camera.

This is the current look of our family room. If you saw what this room used to look like, you'd see the huge transformation. Starting with the wall over the fireplace. There used to be a huge mirror almost up to the ceiling on that wall and it was surrounded by very old and cheap looking sconces that held candles! They are all gone! Fresh paint and re-staining the floors have made a big difference.

This is our front hallway. I have tried to bring a little fall into the house. The ledge above our front door has a fall bough and candles that operate off of batteries which are controlled by a remote control. To me this is very neat. Sunflowers are important and meaningful to me, so when I saw these flowers at Michael's I knew they were meant for the house.