FOR LOVE OF FRIENDS

It was the morning of Aug. 11, 1998, when the telephone rang. My wife, who was at home, answered it. “Come to the hospital, immediately,” the caller told her. “I think we are going to receive a lung donation for you.” My wife hung up the telephone and prayed to the Lord our God that it would be true. That night, at INOVA Fairfax Hospital, my wife successfully received a lung transplant.

My wife suffered from a medical condition known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In the years leading up to the time of her transplant, she was on oxygen 24 hours a day. At home, the oxygen machine she was connected to had an air hose that reached any place in the house. When she went out of the house, she had to connect up to a small portable cylinder that provided the oxygen she needed to live.

Even on oxygen, however, she always had the feeling she was about to suffocate. After the transplant surgery, and just after they took her off the respirator, she gave thanks to God for restoring her ability to breathe normally once again, and for giving her a second lease on life.

The fact that my wife received a lifegiving lung meant that someone else had died. In her case, that life belonged to a lovely, energetic, and popular 17- year-old girl who lived in Silver Spring, Md. Her name was Erin Boyer, and Erin had taken it upon herself to encourage her many friends and fellow students to sign up to be organ donors, too. She could not have known that she would be struck down suddenly as a result of a brain aneurysm.

Because Erin Boyer loved her friends, friends she could never come to know, at least six people, including my wife, received life-giving organ donations. The new lung my wife received made it possible for her to know the birth of our five grandchildren, and it enabled her to spend countless hours in loving, hugging, laughing with them, and enjoying them as much as was humanly possible. My wife, Karen Marie Martinez, died from a massive stroke in February 2006.

In Scripture, we are told that we will not have these human bodies in Heaven. There, we will be given new spiritual bodies. Bodies that will not ache, break, age or decay. We will have bodies that will last forever. This means that, when God’s plan for our lives here on Earth is fulfilled, we can, like Erin Boyer, provide those friends of ours who are in critical need of an organ donation with a new lease on life. John 15:13 tells us what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us, and Erin Boyer demonstrated what we, too, can do for others.

— Dave Martinez

Courtesy of The Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist