Here and there, even in our jaded, anonymous, harsh, and often tragic world, we still find books like Chicken Soup For The Soul. Someone even gave me a copy after my heart attack and, worse yet, the attacked heart is weak and craves support and stories of love and happiness — I liked it! It has its sequels and imitators and blogs, columns and news of happy things to take our minds off the wars, death, tensions and tragedies. Normally, I give them some berth and head for the juicier items.
Today, while I hunted my RSS feeds and Internet news sources, a story popped out that my damaged and sometimes needy heart needed. Perhaps it will spread some feelings of love and destiny, of odd goodness in a world of many things that are less than good. Listen up while you sip that chicken soup.
The news from South Carolina includes the story of Cheryl Cottle whose husband, Terry, died back in '95 at an early age of 33, poor fellow. It is awful to think of young people dying before they have a chance to fully live, but die he did. Cheryl, whose heart must also have some deep feelings of wanting to spread life, donated his heart so that another person just might be able to live on it. It was done and I assume she mourned her young husband and cheered his heart on as it traveled in some ice-chest to a transplant center, where teams of white coats labored to beat the short deadlines to install it in a dying man.
The man, Sonny Graham - who was 57 years old back then in 1995 - was said to be dying of congestive heart failure. It is a condition and status I have been in and, although I decided against transplant, I have survived. These are not easy decisions and the results are not often so positive as was my survival, and the new life with a healthy heart that this Sonny Graham met because of the kindness of the Cottles, the kindness of strangers to strangers. Down he flew to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. They had the heart. He braved that little rotary saw with which they cut breast-bones, the tubes inserted here and there and almost everywhere, and the pain that comes later and makes itself at home. He survived the wait, the operation, the rejection and the recuperation.
Article comments
1 - elsa
How incredibly sweet. :)
Thank you.
2 - Christopher Rose
Cool story.