A Heart Beats On

If you follow the blog you may remember the 7 page letter that I wrote to Hayley’s heart recipient.  You can find it here.

I never sent that letter, I thought it might scare the woman away.  We had been told not to expect to hear from any recipients for at least a year and most often it took at least 2 years for them to be ready to contact a donor family.  The way it works is I, the donor family, writes a letter.  That letter gets sent to the O.P.O.; Organ Procurement Organization.  A family advocate reads the letter, makes a decision if any of it needs to be redacted (I love that word), redact, makes me think of what Cohen or Trump is probably doing right now!  Sorry, got distracted.  The letter is then forwarded to a counterpart that handles the recipient’s case.  Eventually the letter gets to the organ recipient.  I was not in a hurry to write this letter only because I had been so discouraged about the statistics of how long it takes to get a response.  I felt I deserved to know whose life my daughter saved.  At the same time I am lucky to know a recipient and through those conversations saw it from their perspective.  They deal with survivor guilt.  When I put myself in their shoes I can’t imagine what I would say to the mother of the donor that saved my life.  I just wouldn’t know.  Add that they just survived a life threatening time and you realize that their emotional and mental state must be just as erratic as mine.  So I get it.  I put off the letter, I suck at disappointment.  If I didn’t write then the control was still mine.  I couldn’t get hurt.    I hurt enough.

In March I decided it was time to grow a pair and send the letters.  The worst thing that could happen was that I still didn’t know any more than I knew the day before.  I tried to keep the letter simple and one page.  I read it over and over looking for any words or phrases that would make these people feel anything remotely like guilt or reluctance.  I also tried not to sound crazy.  I just wanted to be me.  I wanted them to understand how happy I am for them.  That saving their lives gave me a purpose during the worse week of my entire life.  It gave me something positive to focus on and allowed my daughter to end her life as she lived it.  She was a beautiful and unselfish person at heart.  She wanted to live a life that helped others.  This was her final gift to the world.

Let’s be honest, I also wanted to know what kind of people were living with a piece of my daughter.  I hoped they were grateful.  I hoped they were a good person.  I hoped they might not have voted for Trump!  I hoped they were loved.

I told myself I had no expectations, yet I called the OPO the last week of March just to make sure they had gotten the letter and it had been forwarded.  I needed to know if it had arrived and they were choosing not to write me back.  I checked the mail daily much to our mailman’s delight.  Normally he is trying to cram a week’s worth of mail into that small space.  He politely asked me once if I lost my key.  No return letters.  You see I was told it might take a long time to get a response but I really couldn’t believe it.  I felt it would be ungrateful not to respond.  Then I would feel guilty for those thoughts.  I don’t know what they are facing in their lives.  But those were my honest feelings.

On March 31st Scott was in Yakima at a golf thing.  I had sat noticed a new request on my phone.  Great another phishing scam.  I seem to get a lot of the fake requests from fake “friends”.  I was ready to delete the messenger request.  There was no message yet.  As my finger headed for the reject button I saw the telling dot, dot, dot that you see when the other person was typing.  Okay, I will wait for it, maybe it will be entertaining, nothing good was on CNN that day.  Boy was I wrong.  This is what I saw:

Dear Dawn, I so very much hope that my contacting you like this is ok. I’ve just received the most beautiful letter I’ve ever read about your beautiful Hayley. My name is Elena and your daughter saved my life. Thank you!! Thank you for letting me stay with my family a little while longer. Write me back anytime. I’m always available for you. My heart will always be yours and Hayley’s. Much love, Elena

I asked “Are you her?”  “Heart?”

“Yes” 

She then sent me a picture of my letter and the photo card of Hayley that I sent.

I started ugly crying and talking to the dogs.  “it’s her, it’s really her”.  All I got was tail wags and blink blink.  I started calling people.  People that were there that week and read them the message.  Everyone cried.  My friend, Terri, came straight over with a bottle of lavender vodka and made us martinis.  I started to chat with Hayley’s heart recipient.  It was fitting Terri was here.  She was there every step of the way during those two weeks.  She witnessed everything I did. She was as thrilled and emotional as I was.

She apologized for being impatient.  She said she was writing me back and decided to look up “Be Like Hayley” and found me.  I loved that, she was a rule breaker just like both Hayley and I.  How perfect.  I told her impatience was my middle name.  We begin to chat.  We begin to build a friendship.  We are of similar ages, she 44, me 47.  She has three teenagers.  Her sadness for me and the guilt was obvious in her messages.  I reassured her that she was giving me a gift.  Since that day we chat often.  On Thursday we talked on the phone.

Today I will meet her.  I will get to listen to Hayley’s heart.  It will be filmed by Q13 and my friend.  She has been working on Hayley’s story since December when we first talked about how could that story make a difference.  It worked out perfectly.  The first filming we did I talked a lot about what it would mean to meet her heart recipient.  The story had not aired yet so now it will include our meeting today.

How do I feel?  I feel excited and nervous.  Excited to give my new friend a big hug.  Nervous that I will completely lose it and ugly cry all over her.  Scott will not be there.  He is not ready.  I am trying to understand.  I am respecting his decision.  (see I can be a grown up when needed)

The meeting will take place at my Brother’s home in Orting.  This is about half way between her home and mine.  I wanted to share this with my brother and sister in law.  They were there every minute.  I want them to be included.  So I have my stethoscope ready, I figured this was better than sticking my face in her chest.  I will listen to my child’s heart beat.  I can remember hearing it for the first time in utero in 1997.  I can hear it as I laid my head on her chest last July as they prepared to take her from me.  I don’t know how I will feel.  Will I recognize it?  I am so happy it continues to beat for such a quality person.  But it is hard to wrap my brain around it.  Hayley’s ashes sit in a beautiful blue urn on my mantel.  How can a part of her body still be alive?  The science behind it is mind blowing and honestly really difficult to wrap my brain around.  If I think too hard about it I can’t handle it.  I think about how amazing that heart was.  It was beautiful, it was healthy, it was golden, it loved big, it laughed long, it lived for the most important girl in my life.  I miss that heart with every fiber of my being.  If I think too hard I realize that if I am honest I am still in the denial phase.  She is just at school in Bellingham.  She will be home soon.  If I hear it beating for another how can my brain use that excuse. Has my brain used that to protect me?  What happens when it is gone?

I think about her, the recipient.  She is so brave.  She has grieved for me.  I know she has.  But she will come face to face with my grief today.  I will have to be strong for her.  I have to shut down the thoughts of scars and words like donor or procurement.  I have to not think of the Sunday that Hayley was taken from me but the Monday that this single mother woke up and knew she would still be there for her daughter and sons.  I need her joy to be my joy.  I need to remind myself that we did exactly what Hayley wanted.  Her life was not wasted at the end.  It gave life to so many.  Her heart beats on and today I will hear it.