Mattie J.T. Stepanek

Mattie Stepanek

When most people are just beginning their lives, Mattie Stepanek had lived his to the fullest. Mattie Stepanek was born on July 17, 1990, with a rare form of muscular dystrophy called Dysautonomic Mitochondrial Myopathy, which means that the systems your body does automatically like, breathing and your heart beating, do not operate well on their own. This disease claimed the life of his three older siblings and his mother, who has the adult onset of this disease. Mattie carried an oxygen tank around to support his breathing and rode in a wheel chair.

When Mattie was three years old, he started writing poetry to cope with the loss of his older brother. Now I know that when I was three, I didn’t even knew how to write. But by the time Mattie was six, he had written hundreds of poems and, by the time of his death, on June 22, 2004 (just three weeks before his 14th birthday), he had written thousands of poems and published six books.

In 2001, when Mattie was in his hospital bed, he received a phone call from his all-time hero, Jimmy Carter, and decided to discuss the issues of the world like the starving children and those less fortunate. Mattie inspires me because anyone in the world would have given up. Mattie held on and was not afraid of dying, but he was afraid of not living life. I hope to emulate Mattie and live my life to the fullest.

R.I.P
Mattie Stepanek
7/22/04