Messenger

Elizabeth Kathryn Gerold-Miller reviews Jeni Stepanek's inspiring and heartrending biography of her son, Mattie Stepanek. In the words of Mrs. Gerold-Miller:

Mattie J.T. Stepanek... happened to suffer from a rare disorder that later came to be known as Dysautonomic Mitochondrial Myopathy. His three siblings all died by the age of four of the same disorder, and his mother was diagnosed with the adult onset form after having given birth to them. They are the only five people ever diagnosed with this particular form of the disorder.

Told from the first person, Jeni is one of the main characters of the book, as the mother who cared for her son and supported his efforts, yet Mattie is the focus. She sees him as a gift from God and is thankful for the time she was able to share with him and her other children on this earth.

From the beginning you know that he is going to die at the age of thirteen, and the suspense of the reader in seeing how he is going to live his life in between crises, and when he is going to die, is a faint echo of what you know Jeni and Mattie lived through in real life time. Jeni is very descriptive of all that they went through, but the book is much larger than that....

The book is profoundly pro-life. The doctors all begged her to get an abortion; she would not. They told her to put Mattie in an institution; she chose to be his mother. She chose to let him live his life as much as he could, and went to great lengths to allow him to see his vision through. When it came to the end of his life, she allowed him the dignity to take part in the decisions about heroic life-saving measures. She and others made sure that all of his wishes were carried out when he was buried. They honored his life through continuing to carry on his message to the world.

Share