Heartsongs...

Mattie Stepanek loved people and life. He was born on July 17, 1990 and was the youngest of four children, each born with a life-threatening neuromuscular disease. (dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, a rare neuromuscular disorder) The devastating effects of this disease were not realized until all four of the children were born. Mattie never knew his two older siblings, Katie and Stevie, who died before he was born. But he was very close to his brother, Jamie, who died when they were both preschoolers. Mattie’s earliest creations of poetry during his preschool years developed from his expressions of grief as he coped with the loss of his beloved brother, with the change in his mother’s abilities as she developed symptoms and was diagnosed with the adult form of the disease.

Mattie age 13

Mattie began calling his creations “Heartsongs” when he was about five years old. Each person’s Heartsong is unique and essential in Mattie’s description, even though the message stays the same.  Not two Heartsongs are exactly alike, and no one Heartsong is better that any other one. His Heartsongs are filled with sunrises and sunsets, feathers and seashells, people and peace, pain and hope, faith and frustration, lullabies and laughter, death and dancing, echoes and silhouettes, visions and celebrations, mortality and eternity.

On March 7, 2004, Mattie penned his last poem, and called it “Final Thoughts.” The following day, he went into heart failure, and he died three and a half months later, on June 22. One of the last statements Mattie made during the weeks before his death was that he was “a man of many thoughts and a man of many, many words.” He also asked if he had “done enough” in his life to plant and nurture seeds of hope and peace for children, for adults, for nature and for the future. His mother reassured him that he had done everything he came to earth to do…he was truly the best person he could be. May the words that Jeni told her son can be true about all of us; that we all have done what we came here to do.

Mattie and Jeni Stepanek

Final Thoughts ~Mattie J.T. Stepanek~

Have you ever wondered
If some people will cry, and cry
And sigh after you die?
Have you wondered
If the people will cry and then
Try to move forward as time
Fades the wounds and
Drives the tears and
Gracefully blesses the soul?
I have.
I have so
Wondered.

Have you ever wondered
If some people will live, and live
And love differently after you pass?
Have you wondered
If the people will live and then
Sift and reflect on the
Wisdom of your thoughts and the
Gentleness of your words and the
Enduring consequences of your actions?
I have.
I have so, so
Wondered.

Have you ever wondered
If some people will wonder, and wonder
And wander in realization after reality rests?
Have you wondered
If the people will wonder and then
Peacefully ponder the undying
Essence of your echo and the
Silhouette of your legacy that
Spirits the memory after death passes?
I have.
I have so, so, so
Wondered.