Awakening to Share the Gift of Life

I've always slept deep and long. As a baby, I would sleep nearly 20 hours a day. Mom used to check repeatedly to make sure I was still breathing. She was a legendary worrier and a fitful sleeper herself.

Mom died twice in August 2005 – once at her 75th birthday party in a crowded restaurant and again the next day in the ICU surrounded by her husband and daughters. Through our tears, we recited the Hail Mary, the only prayer we could remember, and stroked her skin as her warmth slipped away. I replayed her last days unceasingly, trying to understand why God would allow us to suffer such pain.

In clearing out her things, we found a few journals that Mom kept in school composition notebooks. What a hidden treasure, to read her innermost thoughts!

She wrote about my sisters and me – how it wounded her when we argued. She wrote about the joy of having grandchildren and her worries for them. I wondered, “What sort of legacy might I leave and to whom, since my husband and I don't have any children?”

My sleep was shallow and restless.

Seeing the trees and flowers come back to life at Easter gave me new hope for the future and helped me to realize that perfect love is born from sacrifice. That spring, my grief was transformed. I felt a renewed appreciation for the many good things in life and God’s perfect plan.

I could even see goodness in the way Mom left us – surrounded by her family, celebrating her birthday, her life. The paramedics brought her back for a moment, just long enough to tell her eldest granddaughter, “I love you.” That day, my sisters and I set aside our differences over things that never really mattered.

Despite my deepening faith, I still was unable to sleep soundly. This was so unusual. I had slept well at home, in my own bed, even when my husband had transplant surgery six years earlier.

My husband Robb and I were initiated into the world of organ transplantation when his kidney failed after 31 years of battling diabetes. He received the call on a rainy Tuesday afternoon to come into the hospital. By the time I kissed him goodbye in the pre-op area, it was close to midnight and his surgery would go on all night. I knew that everything would be fine, and that I would need my rest to help him recover.

After Mom died, once my insomnia gave way to sleep my dreams were filled with a persistent urge to become a living kidney donor. I awoke repeatedly and searched for information about living donation on the internet in the predawn hours. Donating a kidney would be a life-giving physical act, a fitting tribute to my mother. Still, I was uncertain.

After my husband's recovery, we became involved with the National Kidney Foundation U.S. Transplant Games. Held every two years, these games are unlike any other athletic competition. All of the competitors are the recipients of organ or tissue transplants. Moving tributes to organ donors during the games showcase selfless acts of hope and love.

By God's providence, a chance encounter with the nurse who cared for Robb after his transplant prompted me to act on my dreams. She now worked for our local organ procurement agency, coordinating live altruistic donations. This reassured me, that I already knew and trusted a person who could start me on the journey. Since I knew several people who were waiting for a kidney transplant, altruistic donation, which would match my kidney with a clinically compatible recipient, made the most sense.

Always healthy, I found it humbling to undergo invasive tests that people with life-threatening illnesses face routinely. Tests revealed that my left kidney was significantly larger than my right. When there's a size discrepancy, surgeons permit the donation only of the smaller kidney. This meant I would need to consent to an open donor nephrectomy instead of the less invasive laparoscopic procedure.

Now my husband was the one suffering anxiety, while I felt God’s overwhelming peace. I would share my life in a miraculous way.

Years ago, a family we'd never met reached beyond their pain to give my husband, a stranger, the gift of life. It was my privilege to echo their generosity by sharing my good health with another stranger, a woman near my mother's age, who is now my close friend.