Linda Weadock shares the story of her late husband's organ donation with anyone who will listen. She's spoken about his life and death to Rotary clubs and hospital employees, and she's even told the occasional waitress.
"The first time, I bawled all the way through it," said Weadock of Hot Springs. "But it was probably the most healing thing I did in my life. Every time I tell his story, I feel a little better."
Her husband, Michael Weadock, will be honored Thursday in front of the largest crowd yet -- Weadock's portrait will be on the Donate Life float at the 126th annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif.
He is one of 72 deceased donors to be memorialized on the float, which is titled "The Never-Ending Story."
"Donation is a never-ending story," Weadock said. "Its effects go on and on and on."
Linda Weaver, 57, an organ recipient from El Paso, and Frances Griffith, 54, an organ donor from West Fork, will also be in the parade. Weaver will ride on the Donate Life float with 29 other recipients, and Weaver will walk alongside it with 11 other donors.
One more Arkansan, Matthew Morvin, 19, will be honored. When Morvin died in 2011, his lungs went to Courtney Nichols, 34, of Nashville, Tenn., who will ride on the float Thursday in his memory.
Audra Larue is the float committee chairman for Arkansas Regional Organ Recovery Agency, or "Arora," one of the organizations sponsoring the float. She said there has never before been a living donor, a deceased donor and a donor recipient from one state represented -- until now.
"In the history of the float, this is the first time ever," Larue said. "Working with this group of families, donors and recipients is something I will cherish forever."
Larue and other representatives from Arora, as well as Weaver, Griffith, and the families of Weadock and Morvin -- a total of about 40 people -- will travel to Pasadena today and Monday to help complete the float before the judging Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the group went to hospitals across the state to share their experiences with donation and put finishing touches on Michael Weadock's portrait, which was made with all organic materials, as the parade requires.
The Rose Parade, with a theme of "Inspiring Stories," will air at 10 a.m. Thursday.
"The minute I see the float, I'll be in tears," Weadock said. "I'm even tearing up just thinking about it. It will be spectacular, overwhelming."
Michael Weadock
While telling Michael Weadock's story at John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital in Little Rock on Dec. 5, Linda Weadock described her late husband as "a nut" -- someone who loved to tell funny stories and play practical jokes but could also be "sweet and gentle and kind."
"One thing I remember most is when we were working for the same company, he used to send me roses all the time," Weadock said. "I got them on the special occasions, but the ones that were most special came with a card that said 'just because.'"
The couple met, married and raised their son in Dripping Springs, Texas. They retired to Hot Springs in 2005, and Michael Weadock began building their "dream home" near Hot Springs National Park.
In March 2008, less than two years after they moved into the home, Weadock had a hemorrhagic stroke and was taken to a Hot Springs hospital. The 64-year-old was placed on a ventilator and underwent a CAT scan, which showed a major bleed, Linda Weadock said.
"They said there was nothing they could do, and I said, 'Really? Are you telling me he's dying?'" she said. "You can't imagine the shock. We thought we were going to get to spend a lot of time with our son and our grandchildren. We had lots of living left to do."
Representatives from Arora talked with Weadock, and she consented to organ donation. Before the procedure, she and the rest of the family spent 24 hours with Michael in the intensive care unit. During that "special time," Weadock said, she was able to accept what was happening.
"Really, knowing that he was going to save the lives of some people gave me a peace that I can't explain," Weadock said. "I don't think people realize what it does for the donor families. We know that they didn't die in vain. We know they saved lives, and more importantly, that a part of them lived on."
Just weeks after her husband died and his kidneys were donated to a man and woman in Florida, Weadock contacted Arora to volunteer as a speaker. She is now on the organization's advisory council, and she's the secretary of the Arkansas Donor Family Council, which promotes organ and tissue donation and helps other families through the process.
Linda Weaver,Frances Griffith
Linda Weaver had just returned from a lesson on dialysis treatment when she decided to take a chance and ask her friends for a kidney.
Weaver was diagnosed with Bartter syndrome, a rare kidney disease, when she was 17. She had been monitored throughout her life, and at age 54, she was in kidney failure.
Although her name was placed on a transplant list, Weaver's doctor showed her how to perform dialysis -- a procedure that substitutes for the function of the kidneys and purifies blood -- in case a kidney didn't become available in time.
"It was an eye-opener for me," Weaver said. "I came home, and I was very upset. I was bound and determined I was not going to do that."
"I got on my computer, and I sent an email to all my buddies," she continued. "I said, 'Hey guys, I'm in kidney failure. If anyone has an extra kidney to donate, I sure could use one right now.'"
One of the emails went to Frances Griffith, then 51, who had known Weaver for 15 years. Weaver, who helps run a contracting company, and Griffith, a civil engineering instructor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, met through their participation in the Arkansas chapter of the American Concrete Institute. They played golf together and "became buddies" over the years.
After talking with her husband and a transplant coordinator at Baptist Health Transplant Institute in Little Rock, Griffith volunteered to donate one of her kidneys.
The women had the procedure in August 2011.
Like Weadock, they now serve on the Arkansas Donor Family Council, and they have participated in the Transplant Games of America, a multisport festival for those who have undergone live-saving transplant surgeries.
"Linda was sick, and I donated a kidney," Griffith said. "It's a happy ending on both sides."
Matthew Morvin
Al Morvin; his wife, Melissa; and their youngest son were traveling to the Florida Keys in August 2011 when they received an early morning call from Melissa's father, who said their oldest son, Matthew, "had a bad night" and had suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Matthew Morvin was transported by ambulance from Arkadelphia to a Hot Springs hospital. At the time, the family didn't know whether he would live or die.
"There were phone calls, flights, the car, the hospital," Al Morvin said. "All of this happened very, very fast."
The family made it to the hospital that night, and Al Morvin sat with his son, watching his health deteriorate. By morning, he knew Matthew was going to die.
Matthew, 19, was due to start college in a few weeks. He and his father worked at the family's Arkadelphia restaurant together, Al Morvin said, and the two were "very, very close."
"He was just becoming a young man," Morvin said. "I was starting to see him change in thought from a boy and a young adolescent to somebody who sees things with an adult view of the world."
In that moment -- at the hospital, faced with the decision to take his son off life support -- he felt empty, he said. There was nothing but loss.
Things changed when the doctors asked the family to consider organ donation.
"I couldn't talk. For minutes, I was unable to talk," Morvin said. "It was a huge overwhelming sense of relief that started to pour through me. We had this sense of relief knowing that my son's strong, healthy body was there to help so many people."
Years later, the Morvins met the heart recipient, and Al Morvin was able to feel his son's heartbeat. Sometime after that, the Morvins met and became friends with the lung recipient, Courtney Nichols.
According to a biography from the Donate Life website, Nichols was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a genetic lung disease, at age 14. Doctors estimated she would live only seven more years.
Nichols beat that estimate, but in 2011, she needed a double-lung transplant to survive.
She was placed on a transplant waiting list Aug. 4, 2011. Matthew Morvin died Aug. 14, and Nichols was told the next day that her new lungs were available.
Two years after the transplant, Nichols and her husband adopted a child.
"An unwanted baby girl was born, and now she has a home. And that's wonderful," Al Morvin said through tears. "This child was born with limited opportunity, and now she has a mother and father, a stable home, and it's because of our son, because of Arora, because of folks like Linda [Weadock] who get up and talk and make donation such a personal story."
Metro on 12/28/2014