how is the death of mattie stepanek being commemorated?
(CBS/AP) Mattie Stepanek, the child poet whose inspirational verse made him a best-selling writer and a prominent muscular dystrophy advocate, died Tuesday 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, such as heart rate, breathing, blood pressure and digestion, 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 was profiled last year in The Early Show series on American Hero
