Mattie Stepanek: "Play After Every Storm" - A Profile in Living Well

The storms of life will come...that is inevitable. You will face adversity. We all do. The question, then is, What will you do? What will you do after you have faced the dark night of pain or despair? How will you continue to live when you don't feel like going on? How can you take the pain and create something of meaning from it? In the midst of turmoil, it is important to find balance. It is rewarding to the ego to lavish pity on it when it is bruised, but ultimately time will pass whether we live joyously or not. Therefore, it makes better sense to play and choose lightheartedness after the storm. Life will continue to pass us by either way, but it is important to recognize the time for play as well as the time of loss and sorrow. Without both, we live unbalanced and unhappy lives. It is important to play once you have weathered the storm, and no one believed this more emphatically than child-poet, Mattie J.T. Stepanek. Mattie lived with dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Multi-month, PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) stays and near death experiences were sadly, a way of life for Mattie. But after every challenge, Mattie insisted on playing. He knew the power of playing after the storm like only a child could. In the last few years of his life after many months in the PICU, his condition improved a bit and he decided that he needed to "finish this out at home." So arrangements were made with special personnel and special emergency care transportation to move him out of the hospital. His mother was following the emergency vehicle in her van and was dismayed when it took an unexpected turn. The adults had agreed that because of Mattie's condition, they would only stop if there was an extreme medical emergency. One of the medical professionals jumped out of the ambulance and ran back to the van. Mattie wanted a Whopper, and so they were swinging through Burger King, he told her. Did she want anything to eat? Mattie had been playing cards with the men in the back of the ambulance and having a party as they cruised down the highway. He practiced what he preached. Play after every storm! The storms do not last forever. The sun does come out,even if it is for a brief moment. It can be a challenge to choose play over all the drama of the storms of life. It's sometimes tempting to bog ourselves down in the pain, frustration and anger of perceived inequities. Sometimes we feel like St. Peter walking to Christ on the sea. All we can focus on are the waves lapping at our feet. All we can hear is the clap of the thunder that threatens to shake our resolve. In those times, it is important to reach out for help, but once the storm has been calmed, we can rest and regain the balance that we had surrendered during the storm. We choose. The choice is ours. What about you? How do you celebrate the passing of the storm with play? NOTE: Anecdotes from Mattie's life taken from Messenger: The Legacy of Mattie J. T. Stepanek and Heartsongs by Jeni Stepanek. (Penguin, 2010)