She’s learning to smile through her broken heart.
Haunted by the brutal Brooklyn stabbing that left her in critical condition and her young pal dead, 7-year-old Mikayla Capers is finding comfort wherever she can, her great-grandmother said Saturday.
Released from the hospital last week, the girl wakes in the night, clutching a soft, cuddly teddy bear clad in a bright pink sundress and matching bonnet, which plays the Nat King Cole tune, “Smile.”
“She got it from the hospital. When she wakes up at four in the morning this is what she does,” said great grandmother Regenia Trevathan, pushing a button that makes the doll play the soothing
lyric, “Smile, though your heart is aching; Smile, even though it’s breaking.”
“She plays this doll and I sing along with her,” said Trevathan. “This is more than a doll, this is her friend. She’s going through so much and sometimes, I just have to wrap my arms around her.”
Mikayla and 6-year-old PJ Avitto were in the elevator of their East New York building on June 1, going to get ice cream, when “Brooklyn Ripper” Daniel St. Hubert allegedly killed PJ and left Mikayla gravely wounded.
Trevathan announced a fund to collect donations to help the family relocate.
“She is a victim. Please stop knocking on the door. You wouldn’t treat a rape victim like that. She is very fragile right now,” Trevathan said.
At the same time, PJ’s devastated parents said they will hold a block party on Tuesday to mark the boy’s 7th birthday.
The couple appeared at Al Sharpton’s weekly National Action Network meeting, where dad Nicholas Avitto got a special Father’s Day tribute from 7-year-old Christopher Lane of Kipps Infinity Elementary School.
“I’m here to say to you PJ will not be forgotten. I will continue to huddle to defeat the violence in our community. Happy Father’s Day,” the boy told the grieving dad.
Sharpton slammed the city for failing to have surveillance cameras in the building where the deadly attack occurred.
“To think that six and seven year old kids cannot get into the elevator in the building where they live and be safe ought to be something that outrages all of us,” he said. “And there was no cameras to show the family what happened to their babies. This is inexcusable.”