Kenny's Generosity: Organ Transplant Wonderings
My stepbrother Kenny died this summer. June 29th. He had a hard attack on his front lawn in Salmon Arm, British Columbia.
We are, were, I mean, the same age. Well, he is March and I am September. I am older but… it was like he was older. Maybe because he taught me how to drive a half tonne truck in the middle of the night, headlights on for bales thrown up and high, when I was 13. We were. 13. And. Also. How to ride a dirt bike full throttle up the gravel pit. And. Also. How to be there for your mother when she is sad and loves you so much and you will understand her story later, so you stand on the driveway with your suitcase and the snow lands so soft on your shoulders and you wait for her.
I’ve shared a picture here of Kenny and his little girl, Kenize. I have other photos, and pictures in my mind, of him… I especially like the one of him standing in front of logs piled 20 feet high, his skidder in the background. And of him in front of his pickup. Always, that straight posture – his broad, kind chest pushed out proud.
These days, our sister Phyllis reads Kenzie books I am sending that are written for children about death and being sad. We agree that the best one is about the fox and his friends. I think it is helping me and Phyllis as much as Kenzie.
I am so glad he was part of my life. Like, really, I am unspeakably grateful.
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June 29. 2021. Royal Inland Hospital. Kamloops, BC.
We say goodbye to Kenny in his ICU room, thanks to the nurse who lets us be together even though the Covid gathering restrictions are not scheduled to be lifted until tomorrow. He looks like himself… just sleeping. With a lot of tubes and monitors and mechanized wheezing. Kenzie’s mom lifts her up so she can put a painted rock on Kenny’s chest. The matching rock is in her pocket. Glitter glue tracks on the hospital blanket where she leaned forward to kiss his head are just about too much for me to take.
After our smudging ceremony, the organ donation forms are completed and signed.
His mom and I stay because it is hard to go. The monitors and mechanized wheezing bring me back to the ways Kenny was there for me, for his mom. And probably lots of other people too. Showing me how to shift gears in the dark. Snow falling on his shoulders.
I picture Kenny holding hands with the person who will receive his liver. Maybe a young father. Maybe someone who also rode dirt bikes, before he got sick. Maybe a woman with little kids waiting for her to get better. I wonder who will receive his kidneys… and I imagine him and a grandpa sitting together, Kenny looping an arm around his shoulders, him feeling the kind weight of Kenny. Maybe he has a child a grandchild who loves his mother the way \Kenny loved his. Phyllis says they do not yet have a match for his corneas. I know this is silly, but I want someone to connect to the way Kenny viewed things. The way he noticed tender places. The way he saw opportunities to go fast.
I have a science background, so I like to see the research. I am skeptical about testimonials that do not have a scientific footnote at the bottom of the dramatically told true-life- story. And yet, since Kenny died, I am drawn to articles that suggest organ donors may be giving a 'new life' to organ transplant recipients. Articles about cell-memory being changed. Stories about recipients taking on the immune system of the donor due to the stem cells of the donated liver transferring over to the recipient’s bone marrow. Of blood group types changing. About experiences of the donor showing up in the dreams of recipients. Of recipients changing food preferences that reflect those of their organ donor. Before Kenny, I’d written off doctors who said that personality and character traits can be transferred via an organ transplant as nutbars. And I was probably in good cognitive-company, as most scientists have ridiculed the notion. But now it is Kenny. And I’d like to think his character of kindness, nonjudgement, love of his mother, his fatherhood, his playing hard, his joy at going fast, his tenaciousness in coming back from dark places to love his little girl… I’d like to think these traits will be gifted to the people who received his kidneys, liver, corneas.
Either way…
Now he is a part of so many lives.