Mother Fights Back After Her Terminally Ill Toddler Became A Cruel Internet Meme

30/12/2016

People talk just about anything on the internet. But the thing is, the internet connects people that are apart, putting strangers into conversations.

The issue when it comes to the gatherings of people, strangers don't often share the same feelings, let alone having sympathy or empathy.

This is what happened to Grayson Kole Smith, a toddler in Alabama, U.S.. He was born with a heart and skull deformities, epilepsy, breathing difficulties and more health issues. Doctors said that the boy wasn't expected to survive his first weeks in this world, but yet, he survived those claims.

His mother, Jennifer Smith, started a Facebook Page to get support from other parents, and to support other parents going are also experiencing the same challenges as her own family. But again, the internet can be unforgiving.

Strangers simply took Grayson Smith's photo that his mother uploaded to the social media, and made a cruel meme out of it.

And here, she decided to fight back.

The original photo of Grayson Smith, before made into a meme.

She said that:

"Initially I had set up the Facebook page for, really, support for my husband and I to hopefully find other families that had cranial kids with facial, cranial issues, hydrocephalus, epilepsy. You know, just other families that we could relate to, get advice from, because we have never been through this before. And it slowly started turning into this support system for other families, as [Grayson] got older, that were also going through it for the first time. And it's just been an incredible 3 1/2 years. We a life day-to-day, up and down. One day he can be perfectly fine, happy, talkative and within a matter of hours he could have a shunt failure, a severe seizure, and here we are off to the hospital. That's how we live our day-to-day life."

And responding to the meme:

"It said 'That face you make when your parents are actually cousins.' With his picture of his very first pumpkin that he picked out on a field trip that he went with his school when I finally came to terms that I had to let him live his life. He wanted to go to preschool. He wanted to have friends. And that field trip was so special for him to be able to be able to get his own pumpkin, and for somebody to turn that into a joke, a horrible, mean, cruel, joke, was both heartbreaking and devastating at first. And I actually had to sit there and read it several times because it really didn't sink in. It took me a few minutes to realize that due to his facial differences and his uniqueness, someone found that to be funny. And it just broke me inside as a mother."

"We owe it to him to fight back on his behalf and let people know, 'This is not OK.'"

"Grayson's a fighter," said mother Jennifer Smith.

"We're voicing for him. What would he do? He would fight back. And I thought, no, I'm not gonna hide him from the world. I am proud of who he is."

The mother said that if she could find out who created the meme, she wanted to "kindly told them, 'You know, this is our son. He's terminal. We've been through 24 brain and head surgeries. This photo is private. It was made into a meme. Will you please take it down?'"

Mother Jennifer Smith said that she experienced people saying that 'it's a free internet,' meaning that people could do with photos and pictures in whatever ways they want. She said that she's "OK" with that.

But "if you want to spread my son as a joke, the 20-something-thousand people and supporters for Grayson, we rally together.' I am in several groups for cranial kids and hydrocephalus kids, and us moms, we will rally together and basically go on a rampage on their page and so far, we've had a few say, 'OK, OK, stop. We'll take it down.' So fighting back, it's slowly working. People are getting the message that this is not OK. These are people's children."

Grayson Smith with father Kendyl Smith and mother Jennifer Smith.

Grayson Smith, born with water inside his hardened skull, was expected to not live too long to tell his story. He was brought home when he was 12 days old on hospice care.

"We cried a lot, we prayed a lot," said Jennifer Smith.

But then Grayson's days passed, and after numerous surgeries later, Grayson survived even when doctors were pessimistic.

"He's been such a blessing to us," said father Kendyl Smith.

Jennifer wanted to delete the Grayson's Facebook Page because of this cruel meme, but she later decided that she won't.

"If I was Grayson, what would I want to do?" she asked herself. "And he would want to keep going," she added.

"We're going to be better than that, we're better than that," Jennifer said. "Grayson's better than that and we can overcome it."