Remember to Play After Every Storm

The title is a quote by a 13 yr old boy - Mattie Stepanek who has passed away in 2004. I thought I've blogged about him but apparently I haven't -.- ... and now I have to. Why? Because this is my "heartsong", that's how Mattie called his poems even before the movie - Happy Feet has popularized that terminology.

In a nutshell, Amazon's bio on Mattie is as follow:

Mattie J. T. Stepanek lived and died a child, but he had the spirit of a giant. Affected by a rare and fatal neuromuscular disease, Mattie lived almost fourteen years but in that time became a poet, best-selling author, peace activist, and a prominent voice for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Before his death in June 2004, his five volumes of Heartsongs poetry sold more than a million copies.

Pretty amazing eh!!! -.- I first knew him from Oprah's 20th Anniversary DVD Collection (where else haha), together I've discovered Jacqui Saburido and Erin Tierney Kramp. And I seriously thought I have blogged about Mattie Stepanek and can't believe I actually haven't done it. So ... heaven has its funny way of knocking my head ... by introducing a "coincidence" yesterday when I was in the library. (There's no such thing as coincidence, btw ... not in my dictionary, at least). I was looking for books on Oprah and suddenly this book came up. It's called "Heartsongs". At first I ignored it ... as it didn't seem relevant. And actually I ignored it more than 3x ... but guess what ... heaven knocked so hard and made me look the fourth time and I was stunned and quickly went to grab the book after realizing who the author is.

So who's this boy? What's so special about this 13 yr old boy? Well, a little bit of background from his own website, Mattie Stepanek suffered from Dysautonomic Mitochondrial Myopathy which affects Mattie's autonomic, or automatic, functioning (for example, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, digestion, utilization of oxygen...) and that basically are the essence of what our bodies can do. He also knows from the moment when he got this illness, that his days are counting down pretty rapidly. But did he give up? No, to the contrary, he aimed for the stars and the moon. His ambition was to be inspirational speaker, ambassador for peace, writer, and a daddy. An old soul in a young body, indeed.

Here we are complaining about our lives when we are still living and Mattie knowing he's dying and yet he still focused on creating and contributing. You may enjoy his poems from his website. Not all though, as they are copyrighted and need permission to be put on.

I've managed to find a video about him. You'll get to know him better from this clip. He's a dear soul whom had ever existed in this earth. No wonder even Oprah called him "my dearest friend". BTW ... before I forgot .... Mattie's mom has always been on wheelchair ... she had four kids and all 4 of them had the same disease ... and now all of them have passed away too (2 brothers and 1 sister and Mattie). Haiz .... What a strong woman she is and she's been continuing in spreading the words of peace inspired by Mattie.

Anyway ... like Mattie always says - remember to play after every storm ... no matter how tough things are ... remember to take a moment to be happy and find peace.

Rest in peace, Mattie.



Mattie with Larry King


Mattie's Poem - I Am