Gift of organ ‘bigger than life,’ says donor’s mom

LITTLE ROCK — For every person saved by an organ transplant, there is an organ donor. And in most cases, the donor has died.

It may be from a traumatic injury, or an aneurysm or stroke that renders him brain dead. In most cases, it happens suddenly and the family is left to cope with an unexpected death.

Teena Webster of Rogers and Mary Ezell-Wallace of El Dorado have both lost sons who became organ donors. Aaron Webster was 20, and Rashine Joseph Wallace was 23.

Both women are strong proponents of organ donation.

“It’s bigger than life itself,” Ezell-Wallace said.

But many individuals and families choose not to donate. Kieran Healy, associate professor of sociology at Duke University, said people cite any number of reasons. It may not be what their loved one wanted, they may distrust the medical profession or they may not want the body cut after death.

“The overwhelming fact about the request for organ donation is that it happens at a horrible time for the family,” Healy said.

AARON’S GIFTS

Aaron signed up to be an organ donor when he got his driver’s license at age 16.

“He said, ‘Why wouldn’t everybody do this?’” Webster said. “He would have risked his life for a stranger.”

A junior at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Aaron died in a car accident last September.

“He had been engaged one month. It was a peak time in his life,” his mother said.

On a dark, rainy night, his jeep flipped after he swerved to avoid an oncoming car. Realizing the worst at the hospital, Webster remembered that conversation four years earlier and asked to speak with someone about organ donation. It wasn’t easy, she said.

“To wrap your mind around the fact that there’s no chance, that’s one of the hardest obstacles to get over,” she said.

Aaron donated eight organs. Since then, three of his organ recipients have contacted the family through the organ-procurement organization: a 9-year-old boy who got his left kidney, a 59-year-old man who got his liver and a 71-year-old man who got his left lung.

Although donation is anonymous, families of organ donors or recipients can try to contact the respective recipient or donor families through the organ-procurement organizations.

Typically, a donor or recipient will write an unsigned letter to the unknown individual they want to contact, and the procurement organization will forward that letter. Sometimes the letter reader will respond or agree to a meeting, and sometimes not.

In Aaron’s case, his family was open to meeting his organ recipients, so when the recipients of his organs contacted the procurement organization, they were able to connect the families.

Webster said meeting them and hearing their stories has helped the family cope with a tremendous loss.

“It’s a huge blessing for us to know that even though Aaron is gone, other people are extremely grateful to have life,” she said.

RASHINE’S GIFTS

Ezell-Wallace said she and her husband, Samuel B.

Wallace Jr., didn’t know anything about organ donation before their son’s 1997 death. They were living in Oakland, Calif., when Rashine made a trip to the store and was shot in the back of the head.

“The paper and police said it was a senseless killing,” Ezell-Wallace said.

At the hospital, Ezell-Wallace said a voice inside her told her to donate. She wasn’t sure what it meant until someone asked them about donating Rashine’s organs.

“I say it was due to the Holy Spirit, because that was the only thing that called me to really say yes,” she said.

Rashine’s organs saved the lives of seven people. Eventually, a 57-year-old woman who received Rashine’s left lung came forward though the organ-procurement organization to meet them.

“It felt like heaven came down and opened my heart. I cried and cried and cried. I could not let that lady go,” Ezell-Wallace said.

‘DELICATE SITUATION’

Healy has studied organ donation for more than a decade. In the 1970s, when organ donation was still new, many had reservations about the process and the definition of brain death. Some religious leaders spoke out against it.

Today, there’s little religious opposition to organ donation in the United States, Healy said.

Several religions encourage donation, including Catholicism and Judaism, although each has its own guidelines for ethical standards of organ donation.

In Evangelium Vitae 86, the late Pope John Paul II called organ donation an act of “everyday heroism” that offers “a chance of health and even life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope.”

In Judaism, the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards encourages followers to register as donors and states that “the preservation of human life is obligatory, not optional.”

Many religions say the decision to donate is a personal choice.

Religions and ethnic groups that don’t believe in donation include the Gypsies, who believe the body must remain intact for a year after death as the soul retraces its steps; and the Shinto, who believe injuring a dead body is a serious crime, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Healy said whether a family agrees to donation often comes down to how it’s asked, and organ-procurement organizations work to best manage those conversations.

“It’s a very delicate situation,” he said.

When grieving for a loved one, Webster said it’s hard not to want to protect them, even if they’re gone.

“I think people, what they see is vultures. You haven’t gripped the fact that your son or daughter or whoever is gone. It takes so long for that to sink in. Then you have these people waiting in the lurch to try and get something,” Webster said. “It’s so overwhelming.”

For the Websters , organ donation was what Aaron wanted, and the family has benefited too.

Webster said they keep in touch with the boy who got Aaron’s kidney, as well as his family. On Dec. 25, he called to thank them for Christmas because without Aaron, he wouldn’t have lived to celebrate it. And on Aaron’s 21st birthday, she got a letter from the liver recipient.

“That day was extremely hard for me,” Webster said. “But that letter, it got me through the day - knowing that that man was going to be able to hold his grandson because of Aaron.”

Ezell-Wallace said she thinks it’s important that a transplant patient be open to meeting his donor’s family. She really wants to meet the person who received Rashine’s heart, but her efforts to reach out have been unsuccessful.

“That is the one thing I think would help any mother, if she could feel their son or daughter’s heart beat again,” she said.

An Arkansas native, Ezell-Wallace and her husband moved back from California two years ago. She encourages people to discuss organ donation with their loved ones.

“We find comfort in knowing that Rashine lives through others,” she said. “These gifts have given Rashine an extension on life. A part of him lives through his recipients.”