HUMAN GENOROSITY

HUMAN GENOROSITY

We all know something about human generosity and have done or experienced the ultimate act of kindness sometime, somewhere or from someone in our life.

Some two decades ago one of my friends, who was an excellent administrator, narrated his story to me. When he was laid down flat with a bad virus and was hospitalized for a long time he had almost lost all hopes of recovery.

Some people will say that that was no big deal because everyone gets the occasional bug in their life. However, as you will see that this one was altogether different and by the time my colleague found his way to the hospital his life was in jeopardy. The virus had severely attacked his heart and the medical team detected that only a third of it was functioning.

The father of two sons and a devoted wife was placed on a variety of medications but within a few months his heart had wasted away to an even lower functionality. At age fifty he was among the walking dead.

Doctors with the funds from his insurance company arranged his treatment overseas where he was put on a heart-transplant list. There he waited, finding himself in the odd position of hoping for a healthy stranger’s untimely death.

Some seven weeks into his anxious wait, the long awaited phone call came. It was the transplant co-ordinator of the hospital who said that they had located a heart for him.

An athletic man, who worked as a sports administrator, was celebrating his thirty sixth birthday on the premises when he was attacked with a baseball bat. He ended up in a coma and ten days later he was declared brain-dead. In their grief, the person’s siblings agreed to donate his organs. In a few days the medical team at the hospital worked tirelessly to give my friend a new heart and a new life. Within weeks he again had the stamina of a young man and his family began their normal life.

Years passed and my administrator friend could not forget the family that gave him a new life, nor the person whose heart was beating in his chest.

Then two years later he went back to the hospital for a review and at a gathering of transplant recipients and donor families he managed to dig through records to learn the identity of his donor. There he met the brother of his donor.

After a brief introductory exchange of emotional words my friend told the brother of the donor that he was sorry that he had lost his brother but he should be pleased to meet and look at the person who has his heart.

The donor’s brother had lost his brother and he did not know who my administrator friend was and yet he said yes to organ donation. When pressed for reason for the donation, the brother of the donor said that at that time it just made the best sense because the family did not want the organs to be buried in the ground. He explained that his brother was a very giving person and they all knew that if he had a choice he would have gladly agreed.

At this point there was no need for any more words and the two strangers hugged each other with one shared miracle.

From one loss came another life. From one sorrow emerged one solace. This was the gratitude of the deepest human order. It is beyond description and we can only imagine.

Later in life a tragedy struck my friend’s sixteen year old son when he was struck by a car as he rode his bike home from cutting his grandfather’s lawn. The next day after the doctors declared him brain-dead; the family donated the son’s organs to others who could not live without them.

This has been another grieving family’s ultimate gift where human heart beats bravely on with human generosity.