By Gretchen Keiser

A little boy from South Korea will soon be flying home with a strange collection of memories of Georgia and a heart that is working well for the first time in his short life.

Scrambling around the Riverdale home of Ray and Pat McMahon, little Kim seems the irrepressible two-year-old in every way. But only a few weeks earlier, when he arrived in Georgia as part of a medical rescue mission, his body was contorted and his skin color was bluish, the McMahons said.

The little boy had a severely damaged heart, with a misplaced aorta and holes in the pulmonary artery and two of the ventricles, or heart chambers, Mrs. McMahon said. He was brought to Georgia by an organization called Heal the Children of Spokane, Wash., as a last and somewhat desperate measure to save his life. Without surgery, Mrs. McMahon said, he was not expected to live more than a few months.

Even with the open heart surgery available at Henrietta Egleston Hospital in Atlanta, there was great danger that Kim would not survive the operation, Mrs. McMahon said.

Knowing this, the McMahons opened their home to Kim in February, becoming his family while he underwent the rigorous surgery and recovery period and coping with the emotional needs of a little boy far from home and everything, even the language, he knew.

Mrs. McMahon is president of a local organization called Ours of Georgia, a collection of people “interested in children’s welfare,” she explained. Their interest has extended over many years and involves a deep personal commitment on the part of those working for Ours.

The McMahons, for example, brought their desire to be Kim’s foster home to a family conference with their adopted son, Stephen, who is 17 years old, and their two adopted daughters, Kim Chi, 12, and Cathy, nine, who came to the family in 1974 from a Vietnamese orphanage when they were 20 months and four months old.

The family agreed, wholeheartedly, to be Kim’s home for a few months, and their support proved critical in the days ahead. While little Kim was in intensive care and Mrs. McMahon was staying at his bedside, Ray McMahon came down with the flu at home, they said. The McMahon children rallied and kept the household going until Pat was able to come home.

Under the organization of Dr. Moo Hee Lee, a pediatric cardiologist who is Korean, a doctor at Henrietta Egleston hospital donated his services for the open heart surgery for Kim and another boy, six-year-old Dong Myong Kim, who stayed with another board member of Ours. The children were the darlings and the worry of the Egleston staff, Mrs. McMahon said, especially as Dong Myong Kim immediately showed an interest in packing his bag and finding his way back to Korean.

In addition to the donated medical services, the families were showered with concern and care by members of the Korean community in the metropolitan area, who volunteered to be interpreters for the children at any time of day or night and to bring Korean food to help fight the homesickness that was inevitable. The first call to an interpreter came at three o’clock in the morning the first night when the six-year-old had a demand no one could understand, Pat McMahon recalled. “He wants to take a bath,” the interpreter said.

Three members of the Korean community spent nights at the hospital with the children and several closed down their businesses for the day to be available to help, Mrs. McMahon said. Happily, the surgery was successful for both children. The older boy returned home to Korea in late March and Kim Myong-Shin was expected to go home this week.

Mrs. McMahon reflected that it was going to be hard to let go, as Kim raced around, looking the picture of health and energy. His English phrases were punctuated with the one he’s heard the most: “Such a good boy, Kim, such a good boy.”

The experience has clearly been demanding as well as rewarding. “It’s a big responsibility. You have somebody else’s child,” Pat McMahon said, remembering how she looked at the paper the little boy’s family had signed, giving the McMahons legal power should anything happen to him while he was with them. The paper spelled out all they should do if little Kim died, Mrs. McMahon said. “I sat here and cried.”

Now the McMahons are wondering whether Kim’s parents and his five-year-old brother will recognize the exuberant toddler who’s coming home to Korea. “It’s been very rewarding,” Ray McMahon said. “You’ve only got to look at him and it’s all worth it.”