Every year during April – Loyola University Medical Center has a donor remembrance ceremony… I’ve posted about it before… And actually, the year after I received my beautiful lungs, and before I knew about Kari being my donor – I got to be the speaker for Lung Recipients… It was one of my first speaking gigs, and it kinda lit a fire in my desire to tell people about organ donation, and then to tell people about Kari when I learned about her…
This year, as I usually do – I had a number of wonderful experiences – but I want to tell you about one of them that started around a story that was covered in an incredible ESPN story and video last month… The video is nice and long – about 17 minutes – and it tells a story about and incredible man and his family, and the gifts he and they gave. It’s well worth watching, and it might be wise to have a Kleenex handy:
It’s not the first time ESPN has produced an amazing segment about a donor… A few years ago they produced a segment titled “Ray of Hope”, about the North Carolina mascot, Jason Ray… I had the honor of meeting Jason Ray’s parents when I was at the Rose Parade in 2009… I knew that Paco Rodriguez was from Chicago and, after watching the above video – I’d hoped that someday I would meet his family…
After I saw the video about Paco – I reached out to Ashley Owens, the recipient of Paco’s lungs, because we both have things in common… We both have cystic fibrosis, and we both breathe with beautiful, new lungs… I had actually seen a video about Ashley many months before – here is that video:
So – back to the candle lighting ceremony at Loyola… I got there a little early so that I could meet some of the folks manning the Donor Registration tables – and as I wandered past a few of the signs and tables, I see a big poster of Paco, and his brother, Alex, is standing next to it!!!
There is a point in the video where the man I’m standing with in the picture above, Paco’s brother Alex says, “I remember, looking over to my sister-in-law, and telling her, I would think he would be very disappointed to see that all the hard work that Paco did to keep his body in the shape that he kept it… his heart – to let it stop beating… I think you should give someone else a chance, now that he doesn’t have one…”
Paco’s wife Sonia continues, “He wanted to be a hero… He would always tell me that. So I said, if that was his goal in life, then, we’re going to do it for him…”
In a little note back to me, Ashley wrote: “Paco's wife gave me a picture of her husband which I have in my room. I like to make sure it’s in a place so I can see him and thank him every morning. I believe that when you are living your life with appreciation for a gift like we have received, we make sure that it is much more meaningful and try never to forget the gift that was given to us!”
Paco achieved his goal of becoming a hero – to five people in particular, and to their families – but also to all of us who have come in contact with his story…
