People have a great capacity for goodness. We’ve all seen it: Neighbors coming to the rescue of a down-on-their-luck family whose house has burned down, helping them rebuild. A man picking up the restaurant tab for a family he has been watching in admiration for their obvious love of being with one another. Or the man of modest means who wills his hard-earned and surprisingly large savings to a school.
In 2006 we lost someone with such a spirit. Her name was Sheryl Bull and she had been Modern Healthcare magazine’s talented and hard working advertising sales manager for a number of years. She gave of herself to family and friends, volunteering with her Lakeview church and two youth soccer organizations. One day, at the relatively young age of 54, she had a brain aneurism while visiting her mother. She was brought to hospital and placed on life support, with no hope of recovery. All of us who knew and loved her were absolutely shocked.
True to her nature, years before, Sheryl had designated herself as an organ donor. I remember her husband Tom telling me how surreal the room was with all the machines working away to keep her alive as he left the room for the last time. He told me that he felt that Sheryl would live on forever, as her heart and lungs and other organs were placed in the bodies of others who desperately needed new organs. Sheryl would have been happy to know she helped to save lives.
A dear friend of mine from Detroit, Kathi Prentice, told me a story recently about a woman who has made all the difference in the world for someone. The woman, Debbie Samalis, was part of a tight-knit community around senior men’s hockey. Debbie heard that a friend’s husband, Alex Luttschyn, needed a kidney replacement in order to live. She told her husband that she felt, because her blood type was the same as Alex’s, that she would like to explore the possibility of giving one of her kidneys to him. After consulting with doctors, she agreed to do so. Kathy explains that all the wives were absolutely shocked by Debbie’s decision. “She was always full of life and seemed so carefree about everything, but when it came to giving up one her kidneys to her friend’s husband, she was as serious as can be.”
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Date: November 25, 2013