FROM DEATH TO LIFE
by C. J. Winters

Some moments etch themselves into life like acid. Others tint the memory in delicate pastels. Still others jar and confuse us.

But one rarely forgets the touch of an angel.

The moment I heard the unfamiliar female voice on the phone that Sunday evening in June, 1990, asking to speak to my daughter, I was overwhelmed by a sense of joy too pure to describe. For in that instant I knew, even before my daughter took the receiver from my hand, that this was IT, the call that might have taken years to come.

Instead it took thirty-nine days.

Even now, thirteen years later, tears flow at the recall of those magical words: "We have an organ donor. You're first on the list for a kidney transplant. Be at the hospital by nine o'clock to start the blood work."

Hours earlier an auto accident had destroyed the viability of a healthy woman, but organs from her unrepairable body--treasures beyond price, each offering the gift of life to another quiescent soul--had been given by her grieving family.

The rush was on. A shower. Phone calls, very brief. A bag packed. The careful drive to the hospital. Then the door closing, shutting out my husband and me so the critical tests could begin. A final dialysis in the early morning hours. The doctors, one upbeat and confident-seeming, the other admitting concern for the future of the precious kidney.

While there could be no promises, perhaps from a mother's intuition came the certainty during those brief, exhilarating hours that four long, sad years of failing kidneys and peritoneal dialysis--barely sustaining an ebbing young life--were closing on that night.

We waited, her father and I, alone in silent jubilation, now and then sparing a thought for the generous, caring family that might also be awake, planning their final farewell to...a daughter? a wife? a mother?

We dozed, stretched out on comfortable sofas amid the soft, pleasing colors and patterns of the hospital waiting room.

Then, sometime around dawn, we again looked on our only child, this time prepared for surgery, and fearing she was about to die. I said something like, "This is no time to think of dying--this is the time to live!"

And a couple of hours past dawn, the dedicated skill of the transplant team and the blessing of an anonymous organ donor began to take effect. The doctor, fresh from the surgery, reported. It had gone well. The transplanted kidney had already "kicked in" and was producing that wondrous by-product of life, beautiful golden urine. We could go home now, and return later in the day to see the results of his morning work.

Have you ever watched someone change color within hours? Ever seen pale, fragile toes blush as the sun shone over a new day? Ever thrilled to the sight of waxen cheeks begin to bloom again?

I have.

You may speak of the miracle of birth. Thanks to those named and unnamed others, I was also privileged to be present at a miracle of rebirth, overseen by an angel.