Hey, podcast listeners, some of you may know that Oprah began having conversations about the deeper meaning of life in the world around us, even in the early days of the Oprah show.

When you look inward, then you can begin to create another kind of power because we know you love a super soul style discussion.

I went, oh, we opened up the vault of the Oprah Winfrey Show to handpick episodes that will enhance the Super Soul podcast library.

Every experience in our lives is to teach us to learn to love.

Please enjoy this past episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Super Cell Conversations. I have the privilege and the honor to meet for the first time a remarkable little boy that I wanted to meet for the moment, I heard his story. His name is Mattie Stepanek. And I hear he's an extraordinary person. He's only 11 years old. I've spoken to him on the phone several times, but today is the first time we're actually meeting in person. Here's Mattie story.

I want people to know my philosophy, to remember to play after every storm.

Mattie Stepanek is an extraordinary 11 year old living through a difficult storm. He was born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy.

You feel it in your muscles. You feel muscle pain to get around. I need my wheelchair first. I need oxygen to Mattie's mom.

Jennie also has the disease which she did not discover until after she had had four children.

Katie died when she was two years old. Stevie died at six months of age and Jamie died when he was four years old. Mattie has miraculously just turned 11, which nobody would have ever guessed possible.

From a very young age, Mattie was special. Even while tethered to oxygen, he earned a junior black belt in martial arts, and now he homeschools at the 11th grade level. But his real gift is the poetry. He writes. I have a song deep in my heart. I write to express my thoughts, my feelings. I want people to think I'll feel my poems are fine, but most of them are so that we can understand how we need to listen to our heart songs and to spread peace with each other.

You hear the word heart songs a lot in his poetry.

Your heart, son, is your inner beauty. It's the song in your heart that wants you to help make yourself a better person and to help other people do the same.

Mattie is a very unique spirit. A lot of people would say he's an old soul, he's spiritual, and he's hopeful for something bigger than himself. When I grow up, I not only want to be a peacemaker, I so want to be a father. I have stuffed animals that I treat like my children.

For a boy so full of life, he came very close to dying. This year, Mattie spent about five months in the intensive care unit at Children's National Medical Center in D.C..

I came so close to death, I saw him, George, coming to greet me and having with his health failing and time running out.

Mattie, three lifelong wishes, had not yet been granted.

I would have three wishes, and they are. One time my book is published, I can spread my message of peace to the world to to talk peace with my hero Jimmy Carter and. Meet with Oprah Winfrey free Maddy got his first wish, two books of poetry published in the last four months and with a phone call, the second wish came true. They picked up the phone and handed it to me was Jimmy Carter. It was so exciting. I couldn't believe it.

Maddy was very sick, clinging to life, but he wanted to return to the comforts of home the day before he came home from the hospital. Mattie and I prayed very, very hard. And Maddie's prayer was that he was coming home to live and all the bleeding, it just stopped. I call it a miracle.

I really think I'm here for a purpose in my life. I've had so many close calls to dying. Even if it takes me one year or one thousand years, I have to do it. I was meant to do.

Well managed ways to share his message on the Oprah show, all for the. Oh, my gosh, you're here. You made it here. Thank you. So you're everything I imagine this is your first time flying, coming here to right?

Yes, it was. And what was that like for you? It was amazing for me. I mean, even especially when we had to go through this huge cloud, huh? We would I saw a cloud coming and I figured they would just go around it. Yeah. All of a sudden I'm surrounded by white stuff. And I felt like I was in this fluffy, more chmela and this fluffy marshmallow. That's about my mom, however. She was a little anxious, right, a little a little simpler, that's putting it simply yes.

Well, how are you how is your health? How are you doing? I'm doing a lot better health wise. I'm doing very well, excitement wise. So I heard that a lot of grown ups had tried to get you to let go of the three wishes, but you held on to them.

Yes, because because they were things that will last forever. Yeah. Going to Disney World and in a week having a shopping spree and one day, but being able to talk to Jimmy Carter, being able to have my books published, being able to talk to you here today lasts forever.

You are excused for it is a sweet for me. So you've been writing poetry since you were how old, about three. I would go to my mom on the who would be typing on the computer either school work or playing solitaire. And I would say, Mommy, can you write something down for me, please? And she would say, sure. And I would tell her these poems and she would type them down for me. And then when I learned to write and I all so long that I was making poetry.

Yeah. Because I didn't even know that's what you were doing. Yes, I would. I was just expressing my feelings. I was just saying what I felt like I needed to say. I learned to write, so I wrote and dictated. And now most of the time I just go up to my computer and type some poems.

And so you started calling it hard songs because what it was the song in my heart it was. So Do My Heart. A heart song doesn't have to be a song in your heart. Even talking about love and peace. It can just be your mama said you can be your feelings. Some people might even call it a conscience, even though that's not really what it is. It's your message, what you feel you need to do. And everybody has it.

Everyone, no matter what it is, it is. It's still sings the same beautiful touch of peace and love. But people now are fighting over how our hearts are different. But they don't need to be the same. Our hearts still need to be the same because everybody has different words. Yes, and that's the beauty. We are a mosaic of gifts and each of us has our inner beauty no matter how we look. I mean, you're very beautiful for now, but it's our.

You know, I read your first book and now the second book, Journey Through Hard Times has come out and I have my own favorite poems.

I ask you, where did these where do these come from? I'm just they are my feelings and my life experience since I mean, like I said, when I was little outside. Mommy, can you type this up for me there?

Your life experiences, mister. Eleven year old. But you don't you think you're wise beyond your years, don't you? Yes. Thank you. Yes.

September 11th, after learning about the terrorist attacks, somebody wrote a poignant poem entitled nine one one, 2001. Let's listen to that.

It was a dark day in America. There was no amazing grace. Freedom did not ring. Tragedy attacked sky high, fiery terrain. Structures collapsed red with blood, white with ash, and out of the sky blue. As children trust elders, citizens find faith in later. But all were blinded, shocked by the blasts and the fireball. Outrage, undeniable outpouring of support, even prayer, or at least moments of silence. Church and state could not be separated.

A horrific, lasting event with too few happy endings. Can the children sleep safely in their beds tonight? Can the citizens ever rest assured of national security again? God please bless America and the rest of our earthly home. So I understand that this period of terrorism has been especially hard for you since peace is so important to you, you see yourself in the world as a peacemaker.

Yes. My poetry and my heart. And another sad thing is that allow the firefighters who are still missing. I know through the association we were good friends. And right before the tragedy happened, I had spent a wonderful weekend at a softball tournament with all of the New York fire fighters hoping to raise money through them for MDA and to celebrate life. You actually knew people who were in that building. And I was very devastated. I was scared. I didn't know what to do.

But, you know, I know you believe something. I believe I just wrote in one of my columns this month that when you lose somebody you love, you gain an angel. You know, and I know you believe that, too, because you think you're your brothers and sisters are your angels. Yes. I'm not sure exactly who my guardian angel is, but I know that my guardian angel helps me very much. I also know that St. Jude, Rita and Blessed Brother Andre really brought some miracles on me, them and my brothers and sister Jamie.

Katie and Stevie take very good care of me. And in return, I visit the summer Terry where they're buried and I always start looking towards I live there. You do. And I give them balloons.

You said in the tape that when everyone thought that you were really going to pass on over to the other country that you were a goner. A lot of people thought you were. You said that you saw the angels coming coming for you, did you? Yes. What did that feel like? It was beauty beyond imagination and description. When I woke up, the first thing I said was, don't forget, don't believe in the Christmas trees. Angels are so much more beautiful than.

Let's listen to another one of Mattie's poems. This one is called When I Die. Why did you write this point? Because I. I wrote many of them, and there were my different thoughts on dying and what I would like to happen to me after I do reach that point. OK, here's Mattie's poem When I Die. When I die, I want to be a child in heaven. I want to be a 10 year old cherub. I want to be a hero in heaven and a peacemaker, just like my goal on earth.

I will ask God if I can help the people in purgatory. I will help them think about their life, about their spirit, about their future. I will help them hear their heart songs again so they can finally see the face of God. So soon, when I die, I want to be just like I want to be here on Earth.

A champion is a winning, a hero, someone who never gives up even when the going gets rough, a champion is a member of a winning team, someone who overcomes challenges even when it requires creative solutions. A champion is an optimist, hopeful spirit, someone who plays the game even when the game is called night, especially when the game is called light, there can be a champion. And he joins us if we live as a winner. If we knew as a member of the team, if we live with the hopeful spirit for life.

I'm talking to my new friend, poet and peacemaker, Mattie Stepanek, if ever I had a book to recommend, it's Mattie's Journey Through Hard Songs by Mattie Stepanek, who did all the big.

If ever you were going to buy a book, I recommend it, this is the one with my friends, Mattie and I got to meet each other for the first time after I heard one of his three big wishes in life was to spread his message of peace on the Oprah show. And he shares that message, of course, in this new book of poetry, Journey Through Hard Songs, he's been writing poetry since he was three years old.

I hear the point we just heard on being a champion is one of your favorites because it describes what a champion really is. A champion does not mean you have to come home with a big goal until free. Make everyone know a champ pin is your strength inside of you. And it is what really happens to you, not just a material thing, a champ in what you feel inside. And for these days, a lot of people might misinterpret that.

But I still believe that a champ in is the inner strength. You are very wise.

Very wise. Is Maddie's mom, you do realize that you had muscular dystrophy until, after all, four of your children had been born, right? I was very athletic and running for an also ran five miles a day. And I had four children between 1985 and 1990 and a four and a half year span. And they all just kept getting sicker and sicker. And I was very tired and a lot of pain, but assumed that was the stress of having such sick children and just mental stress of going through and the physical stress of their care.

And when I was diagnosed with the adult form of muscular dystrophy, which is more muscular, it's muscle impairment, they went back and checked my children. Two of them had already died. But Mattie and his brother Jamie were still alive and they were tested and diagnosed with the infant onset, which is neurologically devastating and usually or always, except for in his case, fatal during early childhood. So how do you explain that you're still here? Between what keeps me going is, one, my poor tree, my expressing my feelings and then the opportunity to share it with others is just such a gift to me.

It gives me a really good reason to keep going. Another thing is how people help me through it, like my mom, my friends, my but my dreams. And another very important fact of it, of why I'm here today talking to you is the prayer of Clare.

So I knew everybody was so close to death, Jenny, that doctor suggested you celebrate his birthday early, but you refused to do that. Yes, I refused because I thought if I did move it up a month, it would give a message to him that it was OK to die and that if he lived, then we'd have to celebrate his birthday, which he'd have enjoyed, but do so.

We held off and they did everything they could, medically children's and they say to save him. And they worked on treating him spiritually and emotionally to to try and keep him going also. Because do you ever you get down sometimes. Yes. Yeah. But usually I'll write some poetry, I'll talk to my mom about it and I'll get through the storm and then I'll celebrate. You will. You know, one of my favorites is the The Prayer for a journey that you write at the beginning of the book where you say thank you, God, not just for life, but for our journey through life.

Life is a miracle and a journey through life is so full of so many more miracles. If we travel with our hearts lungs, thank you, God, for blessing me with a gift of heart songs so that I can enjoy my miracles. You know, I think that's so important, especially wrote that in nineteen ninety eight, but I think that's so important, especially now when everybody is feeling a sense of fear and having been terrorized to look at what you have in your life and have a sense of gratitude and see the miracles in your life and you, although you're hooked up to all this equipment, you still see miracles in your life every day.

Yes. Like going through another day and being able to have all kinds of things happen each day, even if the only thing that happens is my own schoolwork. It's a miracle. Well, yes, it's a miracle I get to do that because I. I couldn't do it if I was in a way that's good. But in another way that. Well, I hear that you have a really big rock collection with stones and rocks from all over the world, that true?

Yes, I have rocks from all over the place. I even have rocks from castles in Germany and Ireland and a piece of the Berlin Wall. And my most recent rock was a rock I just picked up here in Chicago. You did?

Yeah. I thought I heard that when you found out you were coming to the show that you wanted some Chicago and Open Rock. I got some for you. One set piece. Thank you. Was a piece. Read this for you. Another one says says wish. Another one says, Maddy, oh, oh, honey, these are all for you, another one. Oh, Bristol, you remember me?

There you go.

And this one says, hot song, right? Rocks for you. Rocks for you. Thank you. You know what, you are a peacemaker. I think everybody who's heard you today and heard your points because isn't that what you wanted to do was to spread the message of your poems? Yes. As felt just a little quiet sigh of peace.

Don't you feel better hearing the D.A.? So you, Imadi, it's just you and Matty in the house taking care of each other? Yes, yeah, we live in a basement of somebody else's house. It's a wonderful family that lives upstairs and they're like family to us. But in our apartment, it's just Matty and myself. Yeah.

So just getting through the day, washing dishes and doing regular stuff is it's not what people think it is. You have to plan everything, getting into a shower, fitting through a doorway, just getting him out of bed. Most people get out of bed. It there's all kinds of things you have to do just to get him out of bed medically and physically. Yeah, well, you must be proud of your boy. I'm so proud. I'm proud of you, too.

Thank you so much. OK, I hope people buy the book.

They go out on our for looking at things, but they're also for crying.

And we are very happy or very sad. Our ears are for listening, but so are our hearts. Our noses are for smelling food and also the wind and the grass. And if we try very hard butterflies, our hands are for feeling, but also for hugging and touching so gently, our mouths and tongues for tasting, but also for saying words like, I love you and thank you, God, for all of these things.

Well, our next guest is here to answer the question, how does it feel to be blind? Tom Sullivan has never known what it feels like to see. Here's Tom story or part of it. Born prematurely, Tom Sullivan spent his first weeks in an incubator where he was given too much oxygen and though it saved his life, it cost him his eyesight.

But being blind never stopped Tom from pursuing his dreams. Whether he is skiing on snow or water, competing in triathlons or whitewater rafting. There's nothing Tom won't try. He's even been bungee jumping. And over the years, Tom has jumped into many jobs from acting and singing to writing books and reporting the news in Florence, Italy.

Tom says he had an awakening when he was allowed to touch the great statues of Michelangelo. And for the first time, he says he felt like he could see really touching the statue of David was one of the most astonishing experiences.

David was. But I also had the amazing experience of touching really his first work, the Baccus. And in the process, Oprah, I found myself realizing that for the first time I could see that I understood the sculptor better than anyone else because I could read the nuance that his hands placed on a face muscle tone tissue, the slant of an eyebrow, the arch of a chin, the nuance of a smile, the body texture, all those things that I thought were denied to me became real.

I've enjoyed four out of five senses on levels that are unbelievable.

OK, so your levels are higher, definitely higher than ours. The wonder of this is that they're exorcized higher, they're not higher. But I had to develop them and clearly has a clear example of what I mean. I'm a runner, you know that. And I run on the beach in California. There are 15 different kinds of waves that you can hear coming in on that beach. Depending on the day. There are 11 different textures of sand.

Really? Sure, there are over 60 kinds of birds that I hear. And the smells combine things like lilac and orange blossom and wheat and kelp and breakfast cooking up on the cliff above the beach where I run. All that stuff is pouring in in a sensorial experience that's beyond measure. So how in under any terms, how can this guy, Tom Sullivan, think that he got cheated? Because I'm finding levels of of life, acceptance and life celebration that go far beyond things that seem surface and, you know, you can measure beauty in a voice and that smiles and frowns also have sound.

Your smile is your greatest thing. You smile huge. I mean, you smile huge.

You know, and it's and and the details you can hear the sibilant sound of a smile, the sounds, the sounds of a smile happen. I was speaking at a school the other day and kids had questions. And just before they asked the question, they go, oh, yeah, I love it. It's the ultimate sound of calling me. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing is. Along with the question of ugly, I don't live in a system of labels, I mean, as an example, I know that I'm blind and I know that you're an African-American, but both of us told you I know the well.

Who told you? I haven't checked you out either.

So you made a decision, though, that you were not going to be labeled, that you were going to live life on the field.

And I know when it happened, you know, when they when did it have to moments? I was in my backyard now. My parents had built a fence around it.

How old were you? Oh, eight. Their assumption was that they had to keep the world outside and keep me safe. Inside and down the street from the house, there was a baseball field and I could hear the sound of the game, you know, the ball popping into people's gloves and kids hitting it. And I wanted desperately to play it. So I picked up a stick and a rock. And I remember this. And every time I'd hear a little boy hit the baseball, I would hit my rock with my stick.

And a kid came by my fence on his way home and he looked through the wire and he said, What's the matter? Kid is blind. And then he started that chant fine, defined by that chant that said he saw me as different and I threw rocks at him and missed. I mean, I hated him in that moment, but two weeks later. I was in my yard. And I heard two little boys move into the house next door, Billy and my cannon, they're still my special friends.

And I thought, OK. I am getting out and this fence was about eight feet high and I climbed to the top and I remember thinking, what now? What now, what now? And I thought, oh, hell, jump. So I leave that in into space. And I crashed on the ground and knocked the wind out of myself. And the little boy, Billy Hanon, saw it and he came running over and he said, wow.

He said that was a gnarly fall. I said, Yeah. And he said, What's your name? I said, I'm Tom Sullivan and I'm blind. And he went, Wow. And then Oprah, this child said The three most important words I've ever heard. And this is from Mattie. This little boy, Maddy, said, I want to play, I want to play. And I've kept the games going all through life. That's fabulous.

Thank you, Tom Sullivan. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here today. Thank you so much, Tom. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast you can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple podcast and subscribe rate and review this podcast. Join me next week for another super soul conversation. Thank you for listening.