Loken L.

Loken was born on March 20, 2011 with a complex congenital heart defect. He is the son of Katie and Clifford, and the little brother of three-year-old Mikos. Loken’s capacity for joy in the face of his suffering was miraculous. “He was full of smiles since birth,” his mother says. “He smiled the whole time he was hospitalized, even through the five days his chest was left open. He was full of joy through the whole thing.” His powerful love for his mother was particularly evident: “After surgery, in the ICU, when he was still heavily sedated, my husband and I came in to see him in shifts, so one of us could be with Loken and one of us with Mikos,” recalls Katie. “When I came in, he started becoming instantly more alert. He started moving around, trying to find me. Concerned, I asked the nurse about it. He’d been so heavily sedated they couldn’t understand his strong reaction. He was burning through the tranquilizers, desperately trying to reach his mommy.”

Loken’s family would like to thank the Freemasons Cardiac Kids Foundation for their great help.