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Indiana woman, 56, adopts ailing young boy nobody wanted
By CARSON GERBER Kokomo Tribune
KOKOMO, Ind. (AP) — Marcus was 13 months old, lying in a bed inside a medical facility, struggling to stay alive.
His tiny body was racked by fevers and in- fections due to severe heart and lung defects. A ventilator and trach tube were the only things keeping him fed and breathing.
Marcus was motherless and alone. He was born three months premature, weighing 1-pound, to a heroin addict, and then aban- doned at the hospital. No one was coming for Marcus.
And that’s when he felt a kiss on the cheek, and heard a voice whisper in his ear.
“My name is Kelly. I want to be your mom. Would you like to come home with me?”
The voice came from Kokomo native Kelly Lively, who looked down at Marcus with a
feeling she had never experienced.
“He smiled so big when I kissed his cheek,
and I knew I was going to do everything I could to give this baby a chance,” Lively said. “In my heart, I felt he had just been waiting for me. It gave me chills. I knew he was my son.”
Lively was right.
The two met for the first time in February 2017 at the medical facility in Shelbyville where Marcus was being housed and treated through the Indiana Department of Child Services.
A few months later, he left to live with Lively in her home on the south side of Kokomo.
And in December, the 56-year-old official- ly adopted Marcus as her child.
Today, Marcus is a happy, healthy 3-year-
old obsessed with reading. He still has a trach and can’t speak, but he can say more than 100 words through sign language. He’s smart, observant, a little shy and very ornery.
But before he came to live with Lively, doctors had said Marcus only had a 30-per- cent chance he would live to see his second birthday. If he did, they said he’d never walk or live a normal life.
Lively said the doctors were wrong on all counts.
“He’s beat the odds,” she said. “He’s been so successful. Marcus is truly a miracle. The doctors have said the same thing. They said, ‘Whatever you are doing for this child, keep doing it.’ They can’t believe it.”
Statistically, Marcus should have either died or, at best, lived out his days in an insti- tution. But that never happened. Everything
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