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

November 5, 2022

Saturday, November 5, 2022

Saturday, November 5, 2022

Tonight's picture was taken in November of 2008. Mattie was 4 months into treatment and by that time all of his psychosocial team knew he loved roaches. They helped Mattie print out giant roaches from the clinic's computers. As you can see Mattie was impish here and was thrilled to hold up this print out to show it to me. Mattie knew I strongly dislike bugs. I can't tell you what a life saver this art area was in the clinic. There was always something happening there which was why Mattie ironically never refused to go to the hospital. His art therapists and child life specialist made a horrible situation seem much more manageable. 


Quote of the day: Grief can destroy you — or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. ~ Dean Koontz


I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard disturbing news. A person died right where we used to live in Washington, DC. It is unclear if the victim was shot there or that he walked there and died. All I know is this particular area was my stomping ground. I walked Sunny in this patch of grass daily! I just am so saddened to see what is happening to Washington, DC and the neighborhood I was so fond of. If interested, click here to see the article on this shooting. 

When I get up in the morning, I literally move from one task to the next, to the next, and so on. Because I have so much to accomplish, I can get rigid in my schedule and I don't like it interrupted. While making breakfast this morning (before running back upstairs to wake my dad and get him washed and dressed), Peter came inside from the backyard and told me to stop for two minutes and come outside. 

I admit, I was flustered, but I went. First of which the weather, even in the morning, felt just like spring. It made me feel good to be outside. But hanging on our fence was this green guy, a praying mantis. It was definitely worth the trip outside and if Peter did not pull me outside, I would have missed this moment. 


Later today we drove my parents to Rockville, Maryland to dine at a restaurant that we go to weekly. We make the drive because my dad gets along very well with one of the servers. But this is the kind of traffic we deal with every Friday and Saturday. It is very stressful, on top of our already stressful existence. 
When we got home, more boxes awaited us. The Fall Item Drive has been a solid success this year. Next week, I will start culling through boxes and organize them for deliveries to hospitals. 


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