A Priceless Gift of Life

Ed now has two birthdays to celebrate—his original one on April 4, and his new lung’s birthday on April 28. His new lung shares its birthday with our 12-year-old granddaughter, Jenni. We are not positive, but are almost sure, that his lung came from a 20-year-old college sophomore in San Jose, who was skate-boarding Sunday morning on the way home from a party when he crashed and ended up with fatal brain-injuries. He was an athlete, having played soccer and baseball, loved skateboarding, and was studying upper-level math and German.

I was touched by the faith of the (possible) donor's mother from reading her comments in an earlier Palo Alto newspaper article about a community tragedy. She talked about her faith as "‘two cores of the Catholic tradition,’ community and ritual . . . We clung to each other and cared for each other. . . No one was alone. We felt too vulnerable and found strength in one another." Now again her life was touched by tragedy and she could turn to her faith to get through a difficult time. The article mentioned that the donor family hoped to meet the recipients of their son’s organs so we hope to someday meet and thank them for their generous gift.

How wonderful that a family would put aside their grief long enough to share the organs of their deceased child so that others might live better, longer and fuller lives. What greater gift could they give in a time of tragedy and sorrow? Their gift is truly a priceless gift of life. It reminds me of the selfless gift that an unmarried mother provides when she gives up her child for adoption. She gives up the selfish opportunity to raise and love her child—knowing that her child and some childless couple will both have a much better life than she could give her child.

"Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow." Ralph Waldo Emerson

We live in a day when miracles can occur—but only when others give of themselves, selflessly. Sometimes organ donors can only give after their death, but other times living donors (such as kidney donors) can give one of their organs so someone else can live a fuller life. One of the transplant coordinators said they have gotten the technology down now so the donor and recipient in kidney transplants don’t even need to match!

There are many good people out there, that although they don’t give a lung, or give up a baby, they give selflessly to others every day in many ways. They mow their neighbor’s lawns, take dinner into the sick, feed the homeless, watch a friend’s child, read to the elderly, volunteer for “meals on wheels,” work in the community. We live in a wonderful world, where despite all the evil and tragedies, good people everywhere are trying to make it a millennial society.

(to see who we think the donor is go to: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=16608 )