And we need to. They need us.
I've learned a wonderful lesson from these kids—a lesson I will never forget. I've learned that the only truly happy people are those who have found a way to be useful.
Join Bea in her effort to make today's children tomorrow's leaders. Contact: Bea's Kids, 1517 Metrocrest #129, Carrollton, Texas 75006. Tel: 972-417-9061. Web site: www.princeofpeace.org/beaskids.htm. In Canada, contact the United Way of Regina, 2022 Halifax Street, Regina, SK S4P IT7. Tel: 306-757-5671.
CHAPTER2
David's Legacy
FAITH KAPLAN
ON NOVEMBER 14, 1992, my sixteen-year-old son, David, was with his friends at a school dance. I went to a movie with my twelve-year-old daughter Kristy and one of her friends. We asked David to come with us, but he said the dance sounded like more fun. And I really couldn't blame him. Later that night, he called home to ask if he could spend the night at his friend's house after the dance. My husband, Steve, and I said sure.
We didn't know David would never come home again.
Kristy and I just couldn't fall asleep that night. We kept tossing and turning, dozing for a minute and then waking up. Then all of a sudden, I saw an enormous, bright white light in front of my face, and I sat up in bed and yelled, “David!”
I had no idea what was happening at the time. I didn't know what I was seeing, or why I was screaming out David's name. I thought it was just a bad dream. But ten minutes after that bright light woke me, the police called to say David had been in a car accident.
The light I had seen was the light David saw as a car came directly toward him. I truly believe that. That's how strong the bond is between a mother and child.
When we got to the hospital, the police told us what had happened. David and his friend had gone for a walk. They were trying to cross a busy street in the pitch dark. David accidentally stepped off the curb directly into the path of an oncoming car. There was no way for the driver to avoid him.
We were allowed to see David for just one brief minute, and then they took him by helicopter to a nearby major medical center. It took us thirty minutes to drive there—probably the longest thirty minutes of my life.
When we got there, two doctors met us and started discussing David's injuries. They told us he might lose his leg, and I was OK with that. They told us he might have some brain damage, and I was OK with that, too. I just wanted him to live. But then they started talking about how his brain was swelling and there was a chance he wasn't going to make it.
And that's when they asked us if we would consider organ donation.
“Yes,” we said.
That was our answer, our total answer. We didn't need any time to ask questions or discuss any issues because we had already discussed it as a family a few months earlier. We had been aware of the need for organ donors because Kristy has diabetes. And although she wasn't in need of a transplant herself, we decided as a family that we would donate our organs if the need arose.
At the time of that discussion, of course, we all thought we were talking about the possibility of Steve or I becoming a donor. Never the children.
We only had David with us for two days after that. We sat with him while we waited for the swelling to go down, while we waited for him to show signs of life. But over those two days, his body just shut down. We had already signed the necessary papers, so when his brain was no longer alive, the doctors harvested every single part of him that anyone could possibly use. That's what we told them to do.
Initially, the fact that we had donated David's organs was of no comfort to us whatsoever. All we knew was that we had lost our David—our Deedle, our D. J.—one of the sweetest souls to ever hit this earth. We cried and we screamed, then we cried and screamed some more. Nothing we did, and nothing we thought, could help us make sense of such a tragedy.
David was such a special boy. Everyone loved him. He was the kind of guy who was always going out of his way to help other people. If there was an activity at school, David was the one who volunteered to help clean up afterward. If the neighbors’ lawns needing mowing, David was the one who showed up to do it—at no charge. If a friend needed him, he was there.
David loved music and swimming and laughing and movies and fishing and taking long walks in the woods. But I think his two favorite loves were cooking and The Three Stooges. That boy could just cook up a storm. He had a natural talent for it. He loved to see the pleasure on people's faces as they tasted the foods he had prepared. And he also loved to laugh. Maybe his laugh is what we missed the most.
About a month after his death, we received a letter from the New England Organ Bank. They gave us some general information about the people who had received David's organs. His corneas, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and heart had all been transplanted. I was mostly intrigued about his heart. We were told the recipient was a forty-one-year-old retired police officer with two sons, ages eleven and thirteen. We knew that whoever got David's heart would be especially lucky, because this was a boy with a wonderful heart.
We went through the next many months just going through the motions. We had good days and bad days, but mostly bad. I broke my back in a fall and missed a lot of work. Eventually, I was laid off. At my doctor's suggestion, I started exercising again, which I had not been doing since David's death. I started going to the gym a few times a week and I kept it up.
About two years later, Steve and I got a letter from David's heart recipient, sent to us through the organ bank. He had written to thank us. He could only tell us his first name, Jim, because organ banks have rules about protecting privacy. And we wrote him back, through the organ bank, telling him about ourselves and David, and how much his note meant to us. After corresponding like that for a while, we decided we wanted to meet. The organ bank said they would check on the protocol about that and get back to us.
I was so excited about the possibility of meeting Jim—nervous, but excited. One night, on the way out of the health club, I stopped to talk to the owner, Paul, about it.
“Guess what, Paul—I think I'm going to get to meet my son's heart recipient,” I told him. “This man—his name is Jim—has been writing to us, and I think the organ bank is going to arrange a meeting.”
“Did you say his name is Jim?” Paul asked incredulously.
“Yes.”
“Oh, my God. Faith, you already know this man. You work out with his wife all the time. And Jim comes here, too.”
At first I didn't believe him. I couldn't. But Paul told me that a woman who worked out there had been telling him how her husband, Jim, was going to be meeting his donor's family. Right that minute, Paul called Jim on the phone and asked him the name of his donor's mother.
“Faith?” he repeated. “Jim, she's standing right in front of me right this minute. I think you need to get down here.”
My whole body turned to jelly. I was pacing and shaking, and people were standing around crying. Then all of a sudden, a man came through the door and Paul said, “That's him.”
I walked right up to Jim and just looked at him. And then I said, “I want to give
