I don’t cry often, but this kid and his poor mom have been getting to me all week. God.
I wanted to know what happened to the father. I don’t recall him ever being mentioned in any interview, although the sister and two brothers who died first always came up. The AP obituary only mentions the mother as a survivor. Is the father dead? Did he have MD too?
Is anyone else as eaten up about this as I am?
Sorry, I don’t have an answer. I wanted to ask–is this the boy who was on Oprah a year or two ago (or more)? In a wheel chair and with a breathing machine?
If that’s him, I remember being quite moved by his spirit and his writings. I am not very emotional, but I teared up watching that show.
Did he die recently? I hadn’t seen anything. And I didn’t remember that about his siblings. Truly sad.
That kind of person only comes along once in a lifetime. Truly a remarkable kid.
The fact that he’s had 3 siblings die already kind of puts me in a quandry. Why is his mother still having children? After the third freakin’ kid dies, take a hint. Thank god she didn’t though, otherwise Mattie wouldn’t have been born.
Sorry if that sounds callous. I know that she has a right to have a child, but sometimes you have to think of the kid’s potential health first. It really pisses me off when women over 50 get careless and manage to become pregnant, the chances of birth defects are greatly magnified.
Most people describe Mattie as a poet, that he was. I think of him as a philosopher though, he knew of many things in life that people don’t usually ever understand. He will be missed. I feel bad for his mother too.
Sure sounds like him, Tangent. Has to be. There’s a photo up at CNN if that helps.
The episode Larry King ran this week had him ask why have so many kids if they’re going to have this disease. Answer: they were all born within four years, and the first two were diagnosed post-mortem. This was also why I was wondering about the father, whether he also had MD and together with the mother’s, it produced this nightmare version of MD.
Indeed, Mattie Stepanik is the same Mattie who captured hearts on Oprah. I’m not sure what happened to dad.
But to clarify the why more kids question. MD doesn’t always run in families. She may have been told each time that it probably wouldn’t happen again. I don’t know much about Mattie’s type of MD but I do know some kids live much longer than Mattie or his sibs.
Sorry, not much help. 
Thanks for the transcript, I didn’t know those were online. Also a fuller answer to why have kids with MD: Mom didn’t know she had it, either.