parade 12-15

How one woman turned tragedy into the

ultimate gi�

MIRACLE

OF LIFE

A

SPECIAL

CHRISTMAS

STORY

Deb Shearer, center, with four

members of the organ donor

chain that bears her son’s name

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2011

© PARADE Publications 2011. All rights reserved.

Visit us at PARADE.COM2 • December 25, 2011

Parade.com/celebrity

PersonalityWalter Sco� ,s

PARADE

Doris DayThe star, 87, has a new album, My Heart, featuring previously unreleased songs (all proceeds go to the Doris Day Animal Foundation). She talks with Roger Friedman about music and her leading men.

You selected the tunes for this album, many of which were produced by your late son, Terry Melcher. But back in the day, you didn’t get to pick, did you? They used to tell us what to do. If it was a bad song and I had to do it, I just did the best I could. I sang because I loved to sing.“Que Sera, Sera” is now in the Grammy Hall of Fame. At fi rst I thought it was kind of a silly song for that fi lm [Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much]. But it was good in the movie, and people sang it to their children.Let’s talk about your costars. What was Cary Grant like? Cary was very nice, but we didn’t sit around and talk. At lunchtime, he would go outside with that thing you put under your chin for the sun [a refl ector], be-cause he didn’t want to wear makeup.Who did you hang around with? Rock Hudson? We really liked each other. He named me Eunice, just for fun. When he was ill, he came to my show [Doris Day’s

Best Friends], and at fi rst I didn’t know who he was. He was gaunt. I was almost in tears. But we walked and laughed together. It just about put me away—it’s so hard to be funny when you know what’s going to happen.

Email your questions to Walter Scott at Parade.com/contact. Letters can be sent to P.O. Box 5001, Grand Central Station, New York, N.Y. 10163-5001.

Q: How many times has the story of A Christ-

mas Carol been fi lmed, including movies like Scrooged and Ebbie? —Scott Richardson, Buffalo

A: Excluding fi lmed plays and live broadcasts but including parodies and pastiches, the Dickens

classic has had over 60 English-language adapta-tions on the big and small screens since its fi rst known appearance on fi lm, in 1901.

egf

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SWEEPSTAKES

Q: What has happened to my favorite Dancing

with the Stars pro, Edyta Sliwinska? —Alli Flaherty,

St. Paul, Minn.

A: Since leaving the ABC hit last year after 10 seasons, Sliwinska, 30, has focused on Dancing Pros, the pro-duction company she formed with her husband. Their latest endeavor is a theater show called Dance Temptation. “It’s the story of how a couple’s relationship is tested as they travel the world experiencing differ-ent cultures through famous dance styles,” she says.

P Edyta Sliwinska

P The Muppet Christmas Carol

P Kathy Bates

Q: Kathy Bates always plays such strong, gutsy, women. What’s her person-ality really like? —Mike D.,

Santa Monica, Calif.

A: “I’ve had that spunky streak in me for years, but it’s been hit and miss due to my southern upbringing—being too polite and re-spectful of authority,” says the Memphis-bred actress, 63, who stars on NBC’s Harry’s Law and plays

Gertrude Stein in Mid-night in Paris (now on DVD). She credits her TV role with bringing out her sassy side: “Playing Harry Korn, I speak my mind more and more. I am loving the new me!”

M H t f t it

She discussesbig bands,

Paul McCartney,and much more

at Parade.com/day

With a furry friend, circa 1980

Is it true that Johnny Depp owns

his own island? —Jeff Swanson,

Lake Stevens, Wash.

Yes! In 2004, he bought a 45-acre paradise in the Bahamas (left) for

$3.6 million, as a place where he can “disap-

pear” with family and friends. See photos of

other celeb-owned isles at Parade.com/islands. P

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4 • December 25, 2011

Report money, entertainment, and moreyour guide to health, life,

INTELLIGENCE

or doug isaacson, wear-

ing a Santa tie year-round is pretty much a job require-ment. Isaacson is the mayor

of North Pole, Alaska, one of a handful of towns—like Santa Claus, Ind., Christ-mas, Mich., and Frankenmuth, Mich.—where it’s Christmas all year long. “People keep their decorations and trees up all the time. I think those who feel ‘bah humbug’ about Christmas wouldn’t be happy here,” says Santa Claus resident Pat Koch. All of this yuletide spirit makes good business sense. When North Pole (pop. 2,117) was settled in the 1940s, it was called Davis; the town fathers rechristened it in 1953,

hoping to attract a theme park or a toy manufacturer eager to label dolls and games “made in North Pole.” Isaacson proudly notes the streetlights shaped like candy canes, the world’s tallest Santa statue, and the holly bough sign on the Mt. McKinley Bank. Christmas even fi nds its way into the town’s Fourth of July festivities. The theme this year: “Sleigh bells ring for freedom!” But when every day is Christmas, does Dec. 25 become more ho-hum than ho-ho?

“Santa makes himself avail-able in the afternoon so the kids can say thanks, but it is a quiet day,” admits Isaacson. “We’re all nestled snug at home.” —Joanne Kaufman

THE SPIRIT LIVES ON (AND ON)

In Santa Claus, Ind., every road boasts a Santa statue.

F

P Music

UNDUN

The Roots ($14) Hard-hitting beats and melancholy melodies dominate the hip-hoppers’ most ambitious album yet, a rap-driven symphony about a young man refl ecting on the mistakes and bad decisions that led to his downfall. It’s music with a message—the message being that the Roots are still among the boldest and most inventive acts in the genre.

Parade Picks

P Movies

EXTREMELY LOUD &

INCREDIBLY CLOSE

(rated PG-13) The best seller about an extraordinary boy who loses his father on 9/11 gets a thoughtful, life-affi rming screen treatment

The 365 Days of Christmas

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from director Stephen Daldry (The Hours). Search-ing for the message he thinks his dad (Tom Hanks) has left him, young Oskar (newcomer Thomas Horn, quite exceptional himself) learns to connect in new ways with strangers, the grandfather he’s never known, and even his mother (Sandra Bullock).

CARNAGE

(rated R) If you think argu-ments at your house can get ugly, spend a little time with the couples played by (above, from left) Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz, and Kate Winslet. As they sort out some trouble between their schoolmate sons, their veneer of civility shatters spectacularly and often hilariously. Roman Polanski directs this adap-tation of the Tony-winning play God of Carnage.

PARADE’s All-American Pie Contest WinnersThese home bakers won over our judges with their twists on the classic pies featured in our Nov. 13 issue.

White chocolate

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Cherries

Macadamia nuts

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THE TWIST

Barbara Wheeler, Mich.

Christine DiNova, N.Y.

Sally Sibthorpe, Mich.

Kathleen Beebout, Iowa

Kandy Lounsbury, N.Y.

Nancy Snyder, Mich.

Sara Wyse, Minn.

THE PIE THE WINNER

Get these winning recipes, plus honorable mentions, at Parade.com/pie


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Ask MarilynBy Marilyn vos Savant

I manage a drug-testing

program for an organization

with 400 employees. Every

three months, a random-

number generator selects

100 names for testing. After-

ward, these names go back into

the selection pool. Obviously,

the probability of an employee

being chosen in one quarter

is 25 percent. But what’s the

likelihood of being chosen

over the course of a year?

—Jerry Haskins, Vicksburg, Miss.

The probability remains 25 percent, despite the repeated testing. One might think that as the number of tests grows, the likelihood of being chosen increases, but as long as the size of the pool remains the same, so does the probability. Goes against your intuition, doesn’t it?


CartoonParade

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“No, dear, Santa doesn’t really see you when you’re

sleeping ... but he does check your Facebook updates.”


DEB SHEARER

donated to Rosa

ROSA SANDERS

mother of Shalisa

AMY DANIEL

donated to Carolyn

CAROLYN MURDOCK

wife of GerryFIELDING DANIEL

husband of Amy

SHALISA SANDERS

donated to Fielding

SUHAD SHATARA

donated to Alan

ALAN WEST

husband of Barb

BARB WEST

donated to Linda

LINDA BENSON

SAMIR KARADSHEH

brother of Suhad

GERRY MURDOCK

donated to Samir

GEORGE’S CHAIN OF LIFE


Visit us at PARADE.COM December 25, 2011 • 9

AFTER A TRAGEDY TOOK HER SON, DEB SHEARER HONORED HIS LIFE BY HELPING

TRANSFORM THOSE OF 11 OTHERS. MEET ONE EXTRAORDINARY

“EXTENDED FAMILY,” LINKED BY COURAGE, GENEROSITY, AND LOVE. By Kate Braestrup

COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY KWAKU ALSTON ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS NEAL LETTERING BY JESSICA HISCHE

of compassion that would change the lives of six families. Nearly 60 years after the fi rst successful kidney transplant, the

procedure still represents a pretty spiffy bit of surgical wizardry, but science alone can’t make a miracle happen—for that, you need

a healthy dose of generosity and love, and one ordinary person doing an extraordinary thing. Deb didn’t expect

to become part of an altruistic donor chain. “I just thought it would help my family heal,” she says. “And I thought I was going to be doing something for one person, not a dozen!”

In a little less than two years, George’s Chain of Life, as it has become known, has brought together people

from all walks of life. Six kidney recipients—Rosa Sanders, Fielding Daniel, Carolyn Murdock, Samir

In the winter of 2010, Deb Shearer, then a healthy 45-year-old mother of three, fl ew from her home near Jacksonville, Fla., to Birmingham, Ala. There, in a surgical procedure known as a nephrectomy, one of Deb’s kidneys was snipped from its moorings, placed in a pan of cool saltwater, and carried

across the hallway, where it was grafted into the body of a woman Deb had never laid eyes on. The trans-plant took place almost exactly four years after the death of Deb’s son George. He was 22 years old. “I loved my son,” says Deb, a coordinator for the PGA Tour. “He inspired me to make a difference.” The power of that inspiration not only led to the trans-plant but also set in motion a remarkable ripple

Opposite, the 12 members

of the altruistic donor chain known as George’s Chain of

Life, which began nearly two years ago when Deb Shearer

donated her kidney in honor of her late

son, George.

THE

GREATEST


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10 • December 25, 2011

the accident, George asked me if he was going to die. I told him, ‘Absolutely not; I am going to take care of you,’ ” says Deb. “When he died, I was so consumed with guilt and anger. I realized that I could either continue along that path, or I could fulfill my promise to my son, but in a much different way.”

■ A Bit About Kidneys

A healthy human comes into the world with two kidneys, fi st-size organs whose func-tions include regulating the body’s fl uid levels, maintain-ing the proper acid-base bal-ance in the blood, and rinsing away metabolic waste.

Kidney failure, which can be caused by conditions rang-

ing from infection to diabetes to injury, affects 485,000 people in this country, killing more than 70,000 every year. The vast majority of those who survive do so by chaining themselves to a grueling, painful treatment known as hemodialysis (or simply dialysis), which requires being hooked up to a machine that filters waste from the blood for hours at a time. Still, thanks to dialysis, the parents, siblings, spouses, and friends of those receiving the treatment can put off grieving, at least for a while. The patient has no choice but to endure it until a fl esh-and-blood kidney becomes available for transplant—a wait typically lasting fi ve years, which is also when the odds of survival on dialysis begin to drop dramatically.

A successful kidney transplant is a tricky thing. Although it is relatively safe as surgeries go, it is still a major procedure performed under general anesthesia, with all the attendant risks: damage to adjoining organs, hemorrhage, adverse reactions to anesthesia, and infection.

It’s also not quite as simple as taking a dis-eased organ out of one body and replacing it with a healthy one from another. The donor

and the recipient have to share certain precise characteristics; otherwise, the new organ could trigger the recipient’s immune system to launch a war against it. This is why patients often spend so long on transplant waiting lists. And though a kidney can come from a recently de-ceased donor across the country, one from a living donor is preferred, in part because the organ is a whole lot fresher. In Deb’s case, it was mere moments and a short walk down a hall-way before one of her kidneys was placed into the already prepped body of a gravely ill woman named Rosa Sanders.

■ The First Link

Rosa’s kidneys had failed due to high blood pressure, a problem that ran in her family—her father died of kidney failure in his 40s. In a vicious bit of catch-22, the demands of dialysis treatment meant that Rosa, 51, of Sawyerville, Ala., was no longer able to work as a loom operator. Without the health insurance coverage her job provided, she struggled to manage her condition. “I could no longer afford to get dialysis done at the hospital, so I took classes so I could administer it to myself,” says Rosa.

She desperately needed a kidney. Her daugh-ter Shalisa Sanders, 31, a research assistant at

the University of Alabama, was willing to give one of hers, but she proved incompatible. Never-theless, Shalisa decided to regis-ter herself and Rosa with the Alliance for Paired Donation, which matches potential donors and recipients.

As it turned out, Shalisa’s kidney was exactly right for a

50-year-old father of three from Rocky Mount, N.C., named Fielding Daniel, whose organs had failed as the result of a disorder known as Berger’s Disease. Upon hearing they had been matched, Shalisa agreed to help this stranger, an act of generosity duplicated by Fielding’s wife, Amy. Amy Daniel, 50, had proved to be a poor match for her husband, so even before his trans-plant she donated a kidney to Carolyn Murdock, also found through the Alliance for Paired Donation. “When I met Carolyn after the sur-gery, I saw the look of relief on her face because she didn’t have to go

Karadsheh, Alan West, and Linda Benson—were each offered new life by six strangers who thereby became kin. This is their story.

■ A Son Named George

Allowing the Department of Motor Vehicles to affi x an organ donor sticker to your driver’s license is fairly painless. But donating a kidney, especially to a total stranger, while you’re still using it is something else entirely.

Deb knew more about medical risks than most. She and her husband, Tyler, had watched, helpless, as their son George, who’d survived a serious car accident, succumbed not to his original injuries but to overwhelming infection. He died in the ICU minutes before being taken to surgery.

“I was petrifi ed,” admits Deb, who decided to become a donor once she discovered that George—whom she describes as an animated young man known for his sense of humor and “ability to make everyone around him feel special”—had wanted to be one but couldn’t because of the state of his organs at the time of his death. “My husband had a lot of hesitation about letting me do this, and my other kids were really afraid,” she says. After such a trau-matic loss, what could possibly motivate her to place herself in the hands of any doctor? “After

“I THOUGHT

I WAS GOING TO

BE DOING

SOMETHING

FOR ONE

PERSON, NOT A

DOZEN!”

—Deb Shearer

The Greatest Gift | from page 9

Deb Shearer with her husband, Tyler, and their three children, George (top), Josh (le� ), and Hayden,

in their last family photo together, taken in 2004.

continued on page 13


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12 • December 25, 2011

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Views Parade.com/views By Connie Schultz

If you didn’t know

our family, you might look at all the Christmas stockings dangling from

our mantel and think we have 12 kids and enough animals to stock a petting zoo. My husband, Sherrod, likes to point this out to me, year after year.

Year after year, I ignore him.I hang homemade stockings for

everyone in our family, including our four grown children, pets past and present, and any new relatives who’ve joined us. In the middle of it all, Sherrod’s childhood stocking hangs next to mine.

Sherrod’s a little touchy about this, as my stocking is large and glittery while his is the size of a girl’s kneesock and reads “Mer Christmas.” An impartial observer might compare our stockings and think I was more loved as a child.

“Nobody thinks that,” Sherrod says. “Besides, you made your own stocking when you were a kid. Who does that?”

The smart eldest daughter, that’s who.

The annual Christmas stocking exhibit in our house takes weeks of planning. I want everyone to feel included and very, very special. This requires constant vigilance.

Recently, for example, our 3-year-old grandson was watching a storm brewing outside. A family friend thought he would describe to Clayton what was happening.

“Clayton, look,” he said, point-ing to the sky. “That’s ice falling.”

Clayton sighed. “Actually,” he said, “that’s hail.”

Yikes! Immediately, I knew I’d have to alter his stocking.

Days after Clayton was born, I cut out his stocking from the same pattern I had used for my children. I appliquéd a Christmas tree with a bright yellow star and stitched two presents under it cut from the plaid fabric of his father’s childhood coat. Clayton’s is the only stocking I’ve made for the kids that doesn’t have a face. I blame that on the Christmas Cri-sis of 1991, when Caitlin, then 4, erupted into hysterics because the hand-stitched baby angel on her stocking—designed in her first year of life—had no hair.

“She’s bald!” she screamed, tug-ging her bangs. “I’m not bald!”

I quickly added a felt helmet of hair, which made Cait’s angel look like a 50-year-old fi fth grader. At 24, she still points that out.

Anyway, as soon as I heard Clayton say “hail,” I knew he had

reached the age when he would notice that his was the only stock-ing without a face.

“Why?” I could hear his little voice ask. “Why, Grandma, why?”

His new angel will wear a plaid shirt and blue jeans. He will be waving at Grandma.

I have to make two more stock-ings this year. One is for the newest addition to our family, Franklin the puppy. His mother is a 45-pound Lab-husky mix; his father, a 14-pound shih tzu. There’s not a joke you can make about their romance that he didn’t hear on the drive home.

The other is for our son-in-law, Matt, who married our daughter Emily in June. He’s a tough New Englander, the kind of guy who hugs me as if he’s putting out a campfi re on my back. He probably doesn’t care whether he has a stocking. However, our daughter-in-law, Stina, already has one, which features a smiling snow-woman with bouncy black hair and fashionable glasses.

Here’s the problem: Stina’s stock-ing is the only one that’s green. This is because I ran out of red felt. Again, it’s about impressions. A stranger could look at it and think, “Hmm, wonder what’s wrong with that girl named Stina.”

Nothing at all, which is why, like it or not, Matt is going to have a stocking. It, too, will be green, with a curly-haired lobster motif.

What a challenge, by the way. “Oh, oh, oh,” I told Sherrod last

week. “I can’t get the claws right.”“Honey,” he said. “Why do you

stress out about the kids’ stock-ings? They’re grown, you know.”

See what happens when you grow up with a small stocking?

O Come, All Ye Stocking Lovers

Stitching the family together with a

li� le felt, a sca� ering of gli� er, an angel or two—

and this year, a heavenly lobster claw



through another day of dialysis. When I came home, I said to Fielding, ‘Oh, honey, you’re going to feel so good again.’ ”

Carolyn, who lives in Elk Grove, Calif., has since resumed her former life, working at UC Davis as an administrative assistant, teaching Sunday school, and playing tennis. The 54-year-old admits her guardian angel turned out to be different from what she’d pictured. “I am black, and I was surprised to fi nd out afterwards that Amy was not my race,” she says. “It’s exciting to imagine that there is one blood running through all of us.”

■ The Chain Grows Longer

By “all of us,” Carolyn means more than just herself, Fielding, and Rosa. Carolyn’s hus-band, Gerry Murdock, volunteered his kidney, too, which wound up be-ing transplanted into a man named Samir Karadsheh. Born in Jordan, Samir came to the U.S. in the 1960s and eventually opened a res-taurant in Grand Rapids, Mich. After a trip to Amman in 2009, he was diagnosed with a bacte-rial infection that led to kidney failure. He was in a coma for three days, and when he awoke, he began dialysis.

“I couldn’t bear the treatment,” says Samir, who lost his business due to his ill-ness. “I felt sick all the time; I could barely leave my home. I couldn’t live like that.” Samir’s wife, Raeda, was powerless to help—she’d had a cancerous polyp and was not eligible to donate. Neither were six other friends and relatives. So Samir was in limbo, waiting for a kidney, until Gerry, 54, a struc-tural engineer, stepped in; this prompted Samir’s sister, Suhad Shatara, 65, a sales-

woman at JC Penney in Grand Rapids, to donate as well. Her kidney was found to be a match for Alan West, 65, an insurance executive from Grand Rapids who was in the fi nal stage of kidney disease and in dire need of a transplant. “He was in so much pain,” says Alan’s wife, Barb, 65. “After the transplant, it was like he was reborn.”

Barb then gave a kidney to Linda Benson, 63, a retired cosmetology teacher and beauty salon owner from Tusayan, Ariz., who was born with only one fully formed organ.

Six donors, six recipients, in a chain that will hopefully keep growing as compassion meets luck and perhaps something more divinely inspired. “I was praying to meet [my] donor in person,” Linda confesses, “but I was told that we couldn’t meet until after the surgery, and then only if the donor also

consented.” As it turned out, that

donor, Barb, was waiting by the hospital elevator when she saw a woman enter the lobby; she had first noticed her in the parking lot. Having spent so much time with her husband during his illness, she easily recognized the characteristic look and hobbled gait of a dialysis patient. The woman’s eyes

met Barb’s. “I’m having surgery today,” she explained. “I’m here to get a kidney.”

“I know,” said Barb. “I’m here to give a kidney.”

■ The Strength of Their Bond

Though they had the right to refuse, each of the six pairs of donors and recipients in George’s Chain have met each other, per-haps the most meaningful part of this story. “It was like two friends meeting,” Carolyn says of seeing her donor, Amy Daniel, for the fi rst time. “She said, ‘Now you take care of that kidney.’ I felt like she was doing this just for me.” That those who have received kidneys are grateful to the donors seems only natural. What is perhaps surprising is how much gratitude


continued on page 15

Has organ donation touched your life? Share your experience— and send this story to friends—at Parade.com/gift.

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PARADE How can you work on

so many projects at once?

You know something, it’s no different than raising seven children and going into all of their rooms and telling each of them, every night, individual stories. Because in my family, one story does not fi t all. Every one of my kids demanded a different story in a different world. That was my training.

Why did you want to do War Horse?

I think it was the courage, the strength, and the honor that came out of a grotesque war; these very positive values defi ned the relationships that War Horse

is really about. There’s only maybe nine and a half minutes

Do you do anything special

on Sundays?

My wife and kids usually go to the movies, and I stay home alone watching NFL football. My team is St. Louis. [Capshaw and her mother are both from there.]

Your mom’s turning 92 next

year, and your dad will be 95 …

I feel very lucky to have them in my life right now.

What’s the most important

thing you learned from them?

From my dad, I learned to listen to others. From my mom, I learned that if you’re having a bad day today, you’re more than likely going to have a better one tomorrow. My mom is irrepress-ible, and I got a lot of her energy.

Tell us about your Norman

Rockwell collection.

I have over 30 paintings. George Lucas and I combined our collec-tions, and for six months last year they were in the Smithsonian.

Do you have a favorite?

The Connoisseur. It’s a ratherdapper businessman withhis back to us staring at a Jackson Pollock painting and notunderstanding anything aboutit. It hangs in my offi ce, reminding me that sometimes the greatest secrets lie in the middle of things you can’t quite explain.

You once said you

were born a nervous

wreck; are you still

that way?

Yes. As I get older, I get wiser, but I’m no calmer.

Steven spielberg

has two great loves: family and making movies. Balancing the two is life’s big-

gest challenge, he says, though “the family always comes out the winner.” The father of seven, who is married to actress Kate Capshaw, turned 65 last week, and he’s busier than ever. Besides executive-producing TV series such as Falling Skies and Terra Nova, he has two new fi lms, the World War I–era War Horse and the 3-D animated The Adventures of Tintin, out now. He spoke with Kate Meyers from Richmond, Va., where he’s direct-ing Daniel Day-Lewis in next year’s Lincoln.

Sunday with ...

Steven SpielbergThe acclaimed director on family, going to

the movies, and the problem with theater popcorn

of warfare in the entire fi lm. Everything else is about the connection that Joey, our horse, makes between human beings.

You discovered the Tintin books as

an adult, but when you talk about

your fi lm you sound like a kid.

Well, I felt like a kid when I was making it. There were so many things I could do that I couldn’t do in the live-action world, so it was kind of like being set loose in a toy store. Tintin’s a reporter; he’s always out there looking for a good story, and he gets caught up in the adventures that he’s writing about. I’m the same way as a moviemaker.

What are some of the holiday

rituals at your house?

We eat more than we should and we go out to the movies.

Do you get popcorn?

No, because I put on too much weight! What I usually do is get a huge diet drink and nachos. You might think cheese-smothered nachos would put on more weight than popcorn, but for some reason they don’t. Popcorn is the bane of my existence.

The director

talks about critics

and which of

his fi lms his kids

like best at Parade.com/spielberg

THE MAGIC OF

MOVIES IS THAT

EVERYBODY SEES THEM

DIFFERENTLY. I’M

ALWAYS SO EXCITED

WHEN SOMEONE

TELLS ME WHAT A

MOVIE MEANS

TO THEM.”

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MOVIE MEANS

TO THEM.”

14 • December 25, 2011



the donors experience. “Living donation gave me an opportu-nity to feel helpful at a time when I felt so helpless,” Amy says. “It’s so powerful, immedi-ate, and joyful.”

Equally powerful is the feeling that George is present in all their lives. In fact, at the PARADE cover shoot, which took place on 11/11/11, a special moment came when the clock struck 11:11.

“George used to always say, ‘It’s 11:11—make a wish,’ ” says Deb. “At that moment, I got chills be-cause I could just feel him all around us.” And though she no longer has her son, Deb knows that his generous spirit lives on through the chain he has inspired. “Every time I hear about a new person who gets a kidney, I feel a huge hug from George.”

Kate Braestrup is the author of Mar-

riage and Other Acts of Charity.

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the waiting list, and so on. “NEAD arrangements are an innovative way to increase the number of organs available, but coordinating them can be incred-ibly complex,” says Dr. Bryan Becker, former president of the National Kidney Foundation. However, in recent years, organizations such as the Kidney Registry and the Alliance for Paired Donation (which facilitated George’s Chain of

Life) have stepped in to help manage the logistics. If you’re in-terested in becoming a donor, Becker rec-ommends contacting your local transplant hospital and asking about the best way to identify a recipient. “Many are already working hand-in-hand with these organiza-tions and can help you navigate the process.” For more information, go to kidney.org/transplantation/livingdonors. —Jennifer Rainey Marquez

Offi cially referred to as a never-ending altruistic donor (NEAD) chain, it begins with a single altruistic organ donor—that is, someone who is will-ing to give a kidney to one of the more than 87,000 Americans waiting for a trans-plant. Typically, the recipient has a loved one who wants to donate but is an incompatible match. In turn, the would-be donor gives to another person on

WHAT IS A LIVING

DONOR CHAIN?

77 29 27 1 9


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