I thought ' Three ' was the magic number?

[Skeptical Greg]

Alternate title: " If at first you don't succeed .. "

What is wrong with this picture? Or is it just me?

Child poet Mattie Stepanek dies

Stepanek, of Rockville, had dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, a genetic disease that impaired his 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.

This story is a bit old, but it came to my attention because Oprah had a feature on it Monday.

 

[CurtC]

You mean that his mother conceived yet another kid after having three others with it? Yeah, that's questionable, but y'know, people live their lives different ways, and while it's awful that these kids died, you can't really say that we're worse off for their having lived a short time.

When my first son was a toddler, my mom gave him one of Stepanek's poetry books, after seeing him on Oprah or somesuch. Since we read to him a great deal, eventually I worked my way around to this book. Now I'm sure Mattie was a sweet kid, and quite talented for such a young age. Also, I'm no poetry maven. But reading this book was painful for me - it was like listening to Vogon poetry.