Happy Birth Day, Baby

Deer Watching

Quiet, calm, peaceful,
Solemn-eyed, but alert.
These are the deer,
Prancing through the
Forest to the meadow.
Quiet, calm, peaceful,
Solemn-eyed, but alert.
These are the people
Who notice the deer,
Prancing through the
Forest to the meadow.

- Mattie -
8/11/98

[Mattie (Matthew Joseph Thaddeus Stepanek) was born July 17, 1990 with a rare neuromuscular disease called dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, one of the 43 types of diseases being researched by the Muscular Dystrophy Association. He died at Children's National Medical Center in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, June 22, 2004 from complications of the disease that weakened most of his body's major functions.]