Influencer Paul Kim’s Son, 5, Dies After Contracting Severe Case of the Flu

Kim also shared the story of another woman who he spoke to at the hospital, who had a two-week-old in intensive care.

“We got to talking about, ‘Have you given baptism to your baby girl?’ She said no and I encouraged her to think about it, especially given this emergency situation. Yesterday, toward the end of Micah’s life when his bed was being pushed, right at that moment the mom walked up and she said ‘Hey, my husband and I have been talking about it but we would like for you to baptize our child.’ “

Kim said got the okay from his spiritual director and baptized the baby.

“How does this happen in the midst of all this we’re going through? There’s a real possibility that before Micah passed he may have already been gone. Coma, and the situation is very mysterious. His body was there but we know that his soul was already with the Lord. We were in a time of waiting. But, God’s already using him in miraculous ways.”

Continued the grieving father, “For those two weeks we were fighting long and hard, we were consulting legal, health, ethical teams even outside the hospital. Just to make sure we weren’t leaving any stone unturned. In many ways we were fighting for Micah to buy him as much time as possible, until he passed. As a father, that is my duty I was called to do that. Even if in God’s ultimate will it wasn’t meant for him to recover.”

Kim shared that coming home without his son was one of the most “heart-wrenching awkward experiences.”

“Coming back to a home where Micah is not running around, laughing and screaming as he usually is,” he said.

Kim — who maintains a following of over 300,000, by sharing videos about his Catholic faith — first revealed that his son had hospitalized in a Dec. 21 Instagram post, saying that Micah was transported in an ambulance for a “medical emergency.”

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In subsequent updates over the next few days, Kim said that his son had a very severe case of influenza that prompted sepsis and seizures and required that he be placed on life support. He also shared that scans had found that Micah’s brain activity was “not present.”

On Christmas Eve, Kim shared that his family was celebrating Christmas mass with his son from inside his hospital room.

“This has undeniably been the heaviest cross my wife and I have carried in our entire lives. I have never felt so crushed and helpless in my life,” penned Kim in an emotional Christmas Day post. “But I have simultaneously never felt so strong and upheld by God’s grace in my life. To those I know and strangers I’ve never met, thank you for your prayers, generosity, and concern.”

Micah’s health journey captured the hearts of thousands of people online, who posted kind messages to his family while he was receiving treatment. His story even caught the attention of singer-songwriter Gwen Stefani, who commented on one of Kim’s posts, “🙏 praying for u.