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

January 14, 2022

Friday, January 14, 2022

Friday, January 14, 2022

Tonight's picture was taken in January of 2009. That day Mattie was invited to TWO birthday parties. I attended both of them with him. This party was for a kindergarten friend and the theme was a fashion show. In fact, Mattie was the ONLY boy at the party. Yet he tried to get into the spirit of things. All the kids dressed up at the party and then they had a little fashion show, as they walked down a pretend runway. Though Mattie wasn't able to walk, we tried hard to make him feel like he was participating. 





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

  • Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 64,543,154
  • Number of people who died from the virus: 848,074


Another day in paradise on the Farm. Though my dad is the one with significant disabilities, I understand his needs and have developed a routine with him. The one I am butting heads with is my mom. We land up arguing constantly. There are many reasons why we are fighting. At the heart of the problem is that the state of Virginia is foreign to them, they don't know their way around, they have no friends here, they have no routines, and therefore, because none of this exists, I am trying to fill this void. In a matter of minutes, I went from an independent person to one who is working non-stop and caring for everyone. It is a very hard adjustment and there is never a day off. Which means that anything I used to do before my parents moved in...... getting my hair cut, seeing friends, taking conference calls, doing Foundation work, is almost impossible to do. Therefore I admit to being frustrated and angry at times. Who wouldn't be when working around the clock?

Today I was in the car for most of the day. Because Peter isn't home, I had to take my dad in the car with us to Georgetown (in Washington, DC). So driving from Oakton to the District of Columbia can take me 45 minutes. My mom wanted to go get her hair done as well as her nails at my salon in the city. Typically I would leave my dad home with Peter, but that wasn't possible today. So I drove them into the city, I dropped my mom off. Then I went to my local Safeway in Washington, DC. Hoping that their shelves would be stocked with food, because what I am finding in Oakton is NOTHING. NO produce at all! While I was at Safeway, I left my dad in the locked car, parked in the sun for warmth. Thankfully Safeway had produce!

I literally got the groceries back home at 3:45pm. It's Friday, so traffic was bad. But at 5pm, I have to load my dad back into the car and drive to the city to pick up my mom. Of course in between I had to make my dad a sandwich, because it has been a long time without eating since breakfast. So to recap.... that was driving from Oakton (home) to Georgetown, Georgetown to Oakton, Oakton back to Georgetown and of course Georgetown back to Oakton. So in total that is 3 hours of driving!  

While putting away groceries, I looked outside the window and saw this huge Cooper's Hawk hanging out on our bird feeder. It maybe the way nature works, but I hate seeing these hawks grab the littler birds to eat. Sunny came to the rescue and chased off the hawk! Way to go Sunny!




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