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A Tale of Two Families

GLORIA, recipient
Gloria was an active 37-year-old wife and the working mother of two small children when on-going tiredness sent her to the doctor. Sure that she was just "stressed out," Gloria was amazed when the doctors reported that her blood work indicated the possibility of hepatitis. Gloria was told to go home and rest so she left work early and went home to take a nap. Weeks later, Gloria awoke from a coma to discover that she had a new liver. "I was angry and frustrated when I woke. I thought someone had taken my liver and given it away. I was in a hospital, and I knew nothing about how or why I was there! My husband's hair had turned gray. My mother looked 10 years older. I learned that my children had been told their mother was not coming home. Then came the grief as I realized that someone's death had made my new liver available for transplant. And as I looked at my family's faces, their pain, I knew that somewhere another family was going through the same thing...and I grieved for them."

BOBBY, donor
SUZI and MELISSA, donor family members

The week before Thanksgiving 1992, Bobby, husband and father, collapsed at work with a brain aneurysm. His wife Suzi and their children, Melissa and Matt, rushed to a hospital a few miles from where Gloria lay in a coma. As Bobby was being prepared for surgery, another aneurysm destroyed his brain stem, causing his death. Offered the option of donation, Suzi found comfort in the idea that Bobby "would be walking with us somewhere on this earth." But 16 year old Melissa was opposed to the idea. She reconsidered after imagining that another girl's father might be helped. The family consented to donation.

THEIR STORY
Months later, Melissa wrote to her father's recipients, using only first names. The organ procurement organization that helped recover her father's organs arranged the delivery of the letters to protect the privacy of donors and recipients. Melissa received only one reponse--a letter from Gloria, the recipient of her dad's liver. Suzi was moved by the warmth and sensitivity of the letter. Melissa and Gloria continued to correspond, but didn't plan to meet, until fate took that out of their hands the day both families attended a ceremony honoring donor families. Suzi recognized Gloria, whose picture had appeared in a brochure, gathered up her family, and walked forward to meet the family who three years earlier had become a part of her family's life....

In the years since Gloria and Suzi met, they have spoken together many times of the benefits of donation and transplantation--in public presentations and privately. Often, they hold hands as they talk. Gloria has told Suzi of her grief for Suzi's loss and her intention to be sure she is deserving of Bobby's gift. Suzi says that her grief "turned to joy when I discovered that my husband's death was not final but had given five people a chance to live." Melissa, who wrote in that first letter to Gloria that she hoped a child had received one of her dad's organs and could live to grow up, understands now that the gift that saved Gloria's life also "saved" the lives of her son Arylon and daughter Aquia, who came so close to becoming motherless at ages 9 and 6. Gloria and family, who attended Melissa's wedding, now are celebrating with Suzi the birth of Melissa's little boy, Robert.