BAGHDAD , Iraq ( CNN ) -- Twelve-year-old Mohammed Rasoul , his right leg severed below the knee , maneuvers on crutches over the dirt and loose stones through the Falluja graveyard . Mohammed Rasoul sitting with his mother , Jinan Khalifa , eagerly awaits his trip to the United States . Row after row of headstones stand as the deadly reminder of the tragedy the city went through as insurgents battled for control of the city . Mohammed stops at his cousin 's grave . `` I feel an ache when I think of her . Every time I remember her , I cry , '' he told CNN at a visit to the grave a few months ago . As he spoke , he poured water on a tree he planted next to it . The headstone reads : `` Martyr 643 , the child Hajer Ismael Khalil , 13 October 2006 . '' Clutching her photograph , Mohammed says , `` My cousin died on the scene . I still remember her screams . '' The same explosion cost him his leg and his childhood . `` A car came out of nowhere . My cousin was playing with her friend , '' he says . `` I remember [ the car ] was green . It detonated . '' Watch Mohammed tell his story » . His mother , Jinan Khalifa , remembers that day all too well . She was in the kitchen when she heard a deafening explosion . `` There was shattered glass from the windows falling all over us . I went outside and saw my son covered in blood from head to toe , '' she says . Her son endured 11 operations before doctors amputated his leg below the knee . Khalifa says her son put forward a tough face , but when he finally went back home the shock hit him . `` That 's where his personality started to change . He stopped laughing , '' she says . `` It was tearing me up , '' Mohammed says `` It was hard for me to watch others play . And I could n't , I could n't walk , it agitated me . '' CNN first broadcast his story in May where it caught the attention of an American charity , the Global Medical Relief Fund , which offered to help . `` I can not put my feelings into words , '' Khalifa says . `` An entire book would not be enough . They gave my son his hope back . The America we knew was one that came , bombed , harmed . But when this organization came forward , we saw another face of America . '' The Global Medical Relief Fund , a small charity based in New York that helps children of war and natural disasters , has arranged for surgery and treatment at the Shriners Children Hospital in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania . Elissa Montanti , the founder and director of the organization , says she was inspired to act when she first heard of Mohammed 's tragic story . `` I said , 'Oh , please , let me help this boy . ' `` Mohammed will arrive in the United States on Thursday afternoon . He will be fitted for a prosthetic leg in coming weeks and examined to see if he needs additional surgery . Montanti said her organization has a list of other young Iraqi children in need of help . `` The word needs to get out . '' Asked how it makes her feel to help Mohammed , she says , `` It makes me cry with joy . '' Mohammed , too , is ecstatic . `` I did n't think this act of human kindness would be presented to me , '' he says . `` I did n't have hope in Iraq -- hope that I would ever get my hope back . I did n't have a future . '' He adds , `` I want to go to America and meet this person that gave me my future back . '' When he comes back home , he wants to help rebuild Falluja , starting with his school , which was bombed during the 2004 Falluja offensive . `` I will never leave school and , God willing , I will continue my education and become an architect and build all the schools , '' he says , standing on his crutches . But first , he says , he wants to walk to water the tree he planted next to his cousin 's grave . E-mail to a friend . CNN 's Wayne Drash contributed to this report from Atlanta .
Boy , 12 , lost leg to car bombing in Pakistan ; cousin was killed by blast . He is now heading to the United States to get a prosthetic leg . Voice : ` ` I want to ... help this boy that gave me my future back '' Charity director says that the boy makes her ` ` filled with joy ''