We, the world lost the greatest poet on June 22nd, 2004. His name is Mattie Stepanek. Mattie passed away just before he become 14 years old because of a very bad disease. Mattie started recording his poems to a tape recorder since he was 3 years old, and he wrote a lot of poems and some short stories which are about peace, love and heartsongs. Many of his works won prizes, and he was a best-seller poet. He was a poet, a peacemaker and a hero for the world. Mattie was so special to many people around the world, and his touching messages are still with peoples' hearts. I wish I knew about him much more before. Mattie suffered from a disease called mitochondrial myopathy and dysautonomia, which means that his body did not always work well for breathing, heart rate, body temperature, oxygenation and digestion, so he used some machines to help those works. He had a service dog, Micah. Mattie and his mother use power wheelchairs all the time to save their energy. His mother has an adult form of the disease. His older sister, Katie and older brothers, Stevie and Jamie died during their childhood for the same infant onset disease. Mattie was extremely intelligent, but he was also a typical child. Mattie enjoyed playing Legos, drawings, Pokemon, and studying, and he was afraid of scary movies and needles, but he was not afraid of dying because he knew exactly where he was going. Even though he had been facing a terminal illness for the last 6 years, Mattie had never seen his condition as an obstacle between hm and his goals. He worked with a lot of people to help other sick children as a representative of Children's Hospice International. Also, Mattie loved public speaking. In his role as the National Goodwill Ambassador for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA), Mattie did a lot of speaking about how the MDA helped kids and adults with neuromuscular diseases. He met a lot of great people, and became friends. One of Mattie's favourite talking was the one with his hero, the former president Jimmy Caeter. Mattie's mission is peacemaking. He said "I've always wanted to be a peacemaker, and I wanted to spread peace in my writing. Violence is not the answer. Nowadays, we're fighting over little things that in the great scheme of life don't matter... Our war on terrorism should be won with words, not bombs."

Since I knew about Mattie, I have loved his works. He looked very cute, innocent boy, but very deep inside. He agreed with the idea that in poems, every single word is important, but not just every word, but every feeling. He said that it is really possible to make peace. Mattie said that even if we have something depressed, there is always something beautiful. "Remember to play after every storm." I really want to show you all of Mattie's poems, but it would be too many, so only 2 are here for you.

For Our World
By Mattie J.T. Stepanek

We need to stop.
Just stop.
Stop for a moment...
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone eles.
We need to be silent.
Just silent.
Silent for a moment...
Before we forever lose
The blessing of songs
That grow in our hearts.
We need to notice.
Just notice.
Notice for a moment...
Before the future slips away
Into ashes and dust of humility.
Stop, be silent, and notice...
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.
Be for a moment...Kind and gentle, innocent and trusting,
Like children and lambs,
Never judging or vengeful
Like the judging and vengeful.
And now, let us pray,
Differently, yet together,
Before there is no earth, no life,
No chance for peace.

September 12, 2001




Heartsong
By Mattie J.T. Stepanek

I have a song, deep in my heart,
And only I can hear it.
If I close my eyes and sit very still
It is so easy to listen to my song.
When my eyes are open and
I am so busy and moving and busy,
If I take time and listen very hard,
I can still hear my Heartsong.
It makes me feel happy.
Happier than ever.
Happier than everywhere
And everything and everyone
In the whole wide world
Happy like thinking about Going to Heaven
When I die.
My Heartsong sounds like this:

I love you! I love you!
How happy you can be!
How happy you can make
The whole world be!

And sometimes it's other
Tunes and words, too,
But it always sings the
Same special feeling to me.
It makes me think of
Jamie, and Katie and Stevie,
And other wonderful things.
This is my special song.
But do you know what?
All people have a special song
Inside their hearts!
Everyone in the show wide world
Has a special Heartsong.
If you believe in magical, musical hearts,
And if you believe you can be happy,
Then you, too, will hear your song.

March 1996




Dear Mattie,

If only I could know about you earlier... Thank you for letting me notice how important peace is. When I studied conflicts and wars at school, it was almost impossible for me to believe that there is still hope in this world because people and things I learned about were so poor, disappointed,and never be able to be enough, but as you say, it's a choice. Peace is really possible, Mattie. Like many other people around the world say, you are so special, and your messages really mean a lot for me too. To me, saying peace is possible does not sound like a dream any more because you told me the 3 realistic ways we should take. We can have peace for inside of our hearts, we can live in peace, not just think it,and we can get involved, and understand. Mattie, this is just so great idea. I will tell my friends about you a lot! Well, how is Heaven? Is that like what you imagined before you went? You know, everyone over here miss you, the greatest hero so much, but yeah, we all hope that you are keeping well there. Write me back if you have some spare time. Remember,your messages always stay with me. Say my hi to Jamie and Katie and Stevie.

Love from youefriend,Yuri

LIke everyone, recently I have nothing to blog about, but when I read Nao.H's blog, I got the idea! so I will tell U my thought 'bout a population of children. Actualy I read all of ya blog of this week. I think that it is a very nice thing to read others' blog. I could realize that everyone has very good ideas about a lot of things, and everyone is so intelligent!

A population of children is decreasing, right? When I imagine if I can have enough money & stuff when I become old, I am very scared because now, a lot of people claim that even if they pay a lot of money for the society, old people around them do not receive enough to live. I do not want to be a poor old woman... If I pay a lot for my future while I am young, will I really receive the money later?? I cannot really believe that the system will work well for my future.

My grandmother often give me money. I want her to spend her money for herself, but even if me & my mother refuse to receive the money, my grandmother still give me & my sis & bro money... My granmother likes to go karaoke with her friends, so I think that she can buy some snacks to bring there or she can buy more clothes to wear to there. Although my grandmother does not spend much money, I worry if she can keep receiveing enough for her life.

Before, When I was younger, I would say to my friends that I wanted to have a lot of babies in the future, so that my life would be busy & fun, but recently I changed the idea. I heard that if all of Japanese women have 3 children, the population of children will not decreas, so that problems like money for old people will be fine. I used to say that I would have many kids, but now I want to have one son in the future. Though I worry Japan's economy for the elderly because of the decreasing population of children, I want to have only one baby because I think raising many children will be too expensive for me... I want my future son to play basketball, so that he will become popular among girls! Maybe, I will have a different idea 'bout this in the future. I do not know, but now this is what I think. Sounds good?? What do U think? How many children do you want to raise?

I have just finished cooking & eating French toast. I thought that I was quite good at cooking it, but... this time it was not really nice. uhmmm... maybe, next time!

Today news about Africa has been on TV since this morning. It says that there was a big meeting with G8, and people talk about Africa's poverty & hungert to solve the problems. They mentioned about refugees too. They introduced the fact of refugees from Sudan a lot. In Egypt, there are a lot of people who escaped from their own country because of poverty & violence. Many of them are not defined as refugees, so they cannot get a job, and they cannot find a place to live because they cannot make documents. I had thought that if people can escape from their country into different country, they felt safe, but on the CNN news, many of the people said that if they defined as refugees, they wanted to go to different country from Egypt. I was surprised to know it, as I thought that people from Sudan wanted to settle in Egypt because it is safer. Things are so complecated to see the parts of the real problems, but I want to keep knowing about refugees. Does any group work on a country which is related to refugees? If so, I am looking forward to talking with the group.

I have a very good book which is about refugees. The publication is the United Nation, and the title is "The State Of The World's Refuees". I knew about this book when I worked on my research paper last year, and I tried to find this book, but in Japan, I could not get one. I told my host family about this book, and they tried hard to find it for me. Finally, there was one in the States, so my host family get it for me. Thank you for doing all the things to get the book for me Barbara & Michael! The book has important information about refugees around the world, so I want to read it slowly.

I told our blog address to my host family, so my host family can read all of our blogs! Now we really know that the world, can read our blogs! wow, isn't that great?! Let's have fun with the posters. C ya soon.

Hi amigas & amigos. After I got my station today, my father & I went to Tambaya (Japanese sweets shop), and bought some packs of mitarashi-dango^^. I love mitarashi-dango! It was very yummmmmy, mashissoyo!

I watched a news program on tv. It was about recycling. We have just read an article about recycling in Scott's class, so I was curious about the news. Some department stores in Osaka offer a recycling activity. People who have a lot of suits they do not want to keep or do not wear any more visit the department stores, and give them to the stuffs there. After that, they will remake the suits to cars' seats' covers! A leader of the activity said that he was surprised & very pleased to know that a lot of people have curiosities about ecology, and want to cooperate with the activity. One of the people who came to the department store was a mayor of Osaka city! As a very nice driver, I am also interested in the activity. I would be glad if my (father's) car's seats' covers were made by the suits to save our environment.

Well, I'm gtg as smells nice from a kitchen. Have a nice dinner^^.

My little brother has gone on a school trip. He & his friends have gone to Nagano-ken. I wondered if they go to Nagano in winter, they can enjoy skiing, but what have they gone to Nagano for in summer?! He said he would just have fun with his friends, maybe that's everything for them! I hope he enjoys nature like mountain, clean air, bugs(?), etc, etc there all together, and I think he does!I also hope that he has a chance to think about an environment as I often talk about global issues with him.

There is another reason why I was surprised to hear that he would go to Nagano on a school trip. In Japan, one of the aims of school trip is to learn & think about peace. When I was his age, I went to Hiroshima-ken on a school trip. We went to the Atomic Bomb Memorial Dome, and listened to a parson who was in Hiroshima when the Atomic Bomb was released. The parson told us what she saw, what happened to her & her friends, what she had to do during the war, how horrible the situation was, how important peace was, How lucky we had life & day to live, etc, etc,Everyone listened to her quietly, and the parson said " My speaking is not clear, so I'm sorry, it must be difficult to understand". Sometimes she couldnot speak slowly or gently. I now think that was because she was confused & things that she saw were really awful. Like this, we had a lot of chances to think about war & peace during our school trip, but one thing that I cannot forget happened when we arrived at Hiroshima, and very got off from our bus.

Our bus arrived at Peace Memorial Park, and several girls started to take photos in front of Peace Memorial Image with smiles on their faces, and making 'peace' with their fingers as all of Japanese people always do when they take photos. Then a man who was nearly passing there on a bicycle stopped suddenly, and he started to shout something to the girls who were taking photos in fornt of the Image. Everyone was shocked for it, but I couldn't hear what the man said to them. One of our teachers went there, and talked with the man for a while. Our teacher explained what the man said. The man got very angry when he saw the students took photos laughing & romping around. He shouted that they should not have done such things when they took photos there because it was so rude to the people who died in war & their familys. This made me think that there are alot of people who lost their family & friends in war now & still war is a part of their life in their minds.

I'm sorry that my brother doesn't have a chance like this. The people who know war is decreasing, so we have less chance to listen to them. Sometimes listening to them was too bloody, and I even felt throwing up(I just felt throwing up, I did not threw up!, but some students really trew up). Sometimes it was too sad to keep listening to, but I think that is what we really have to know about.