Obituary

Child poet dies at 13; spoke for the disabled

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Mattie Stepanek, the child poet whose inspirational verse made him a bestselling writer and a prominent advocate for victims of muscular dystrophy, died Tuesday (June 22, 2004) from complications of the disease. He was 13.

Mattie died at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, the hospital said.

"Mattie was something special, something very special," Muscular Dystrophy Association national chairman Jerry Lewis said in a statement. "His example made people want to reach for the best within themselves. It was easy to forget how sick he was because his megawatt personality just made you want to smile.

Mattie had dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, a genetic disease that impaired almost all of his body's major functions and caused muscle weakness.

His mother, Jeni, 44, has the adult-onset form of the disease, and his three older siblings died of it in early childhood.

Mattie began writing poetry at age 3 to cope with the death of a brother. In 2001, a small Virginia publisher issued a slim volume of his poems, called Heartsongs. Within weeks, the book reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list, the MDA said.

He wrote four other books: Journey Through Heartsongs, Hope Through Heartsongs, Celebrate Through Heartsongs and Loving Through Heartsongs. His poems brought him admirers including Oprah Winfrey and former President Jimmy Carter and made him one of the bestselling poets in recent years.

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