It’s sad when the Lord calls someone so young home, especially when they had a difficult
life. Mattie Stepanek, and others like him, are shining examples of how to live
lives full of faith, hope, and love.

“I am very human. Some people think I am always brave. I try to be, but I cry
like the next person sometimes. I am needle phobic and pain phobic, so that doesn’t
help,” he said on the Web site. “But even if I get upset, or think, ‘I
can’t do this anymore,’ I get myself together and pray or play or talk with my mom
or a close friend, and I get beyond that tough time. I might say, ‘Why me?’ But
then I say, ‘Why not me? Better me than a little baby, or a kid who doesn’t have
strength or support.’ ”

Teen’s
Advocacy, Poetry Touched Many Hearts
By Patricia Sullivan, Washington Post Staff Writer

Matthew Joseph Thaddeus Stepanek, 13, the cheerful, bespectacled child poet who
charmed Oprah and sold more than 500,000 books of dreamy verse, died yesterday at
Children’s Hospital in Washington. He had a rare form of muscular dystrophy that
affected his breathing, digestion and heart rate.