Adoption Teaches Mom About Patience, Love

FAIRFIELD, Ohio – DJ McCollum leans his left ear -- his only one -- near his mother's mouth

"I love you," Pat McCollum says in a loud, clear tone.

DJ squeals and grunts and waves his arms in happiness. Then he pinches a grape with his left thumb and index finger, pops it into his mouth and leans in again.

"I love you," Pat McCollum says.

The pattern stops only when DJ's plate is empty of grapes.

"They tell me he's deaf," his mom said later. "I don't believe them."

The pair have been proving experts wrong for a long time. DJ wasn't supposed to live past 2, a year after an older child in his home dropped a match into DJ's crib, burning him over 85 percent of his body, leaving him disfigured without both feet and his right hand and ear or the ability to speak or hear or function intellectually beyond the level of an 18-month-old.