It was a typical day. My little boy was 12 years old. I came home from my night shift, working right in there. Kissed him and his brother goodbye, sent them off to ride the bus to school, and settled in for some much needed sleep.
90 minutes later, my phone rang
Nick’s heart stopped beating while he was sitting in class
I could hear the sirens scream past my house as I threw on my clothes and started what would now be the rest of my life.
Because in that moment, my world collapsed & changed irrevocably.
We had a weekend with Nick. We were lucky. A weekend for goodbyes. We had time. Time to call family. Time to cope. Time to try and comprehend the rest of our lives.
When our little boy was pronounced brain dead, we requested to speak with the donor network, and that is when the script flipped for us.
We still had sorrow, and we still felt this immeasurable loss. But somehow, and to this day, my brain still doesn’t understand how, we found hope.
Hope that our little boy would save lives and be someone’s gift. At one point in that fateful weekend, I remember looking at my daughter and saying, “think about it right now, we and some other family are praying so very hard for the same two people, and we don’t even know each other.” I still get choked up thinking about that. Because in those moments for our family, our potential recipients became somehow a part of us.
Nicholas shared himself through the gifts of his heart, kidneys, liver, and corneas. He gave a chance to 4 different people to live a full, healthy life and restored sight to 2 others. All by himself. From a little boy who spent his whole life focused on what he couldn’t do to a life-changing hero.
To me, this is organ donation. Life-changing for everyone. Beautiful and tragic. But oh my gosh. So very very important.
I’d really encourage all of you, especially our medical personnel, who commit to saving lives every single day. Look inside yourself and really think. Can I be the one to save a life when I’m gone, too? You can. Sign up. Be the difference.
I’ll leave you with one last quote that spoke to me recently. It’s from a recipient, but as a donor family member, it touched my heart too.
“My experience is that organ donation is not on your radar until it becomes personal. But it can get personal very fast.
It did for us
Next month it will be 10 years since our little boy died. And I can tell you now, the one thing I’ll never regret is allowing him to share his gifts of life.
