Crownridge resident Rhonda Weiner and her daughter Amber say that donating organs has given them closure in their loved one’s death. Photo by Lauri Gray Eaton

By Lauri Gray Eaton
Editor of the View

An appreciative, admiring throng of some 2,000 people jammed the picnic area of Fiesta Texas on Saturday, many toting cameras hoping to mark the fleeting moment with a token of some permanence. Life is short, and if anyone knows it, they would – these recipients and donors, doctors, family members and friends of those who had received or given the gift of life.

Rhonda Weiner and her daughter, Amber Weiner, were among the celebrants at the Texas Transplant Institute’s transplant reunion. More than a year has passed since their family had to make the decision to donate organs. It was Labor Day in 2006 when Rhonda’s husband, Amber’s dad, was out back of their Crownridge home on a ladder when he fell and suffered fatal head trauma.

“That morning he had told us he was the happiest man in the world,” Rhonda recalled. That afternoon, he was ignoring her nagging about being careful on the ladder.

“He didn’t die immediately; it was at the hospital,” said Rhonda. That meant his organs were viable for transplantation.

Fortunately the family had previously discussed organ donation several times. Amber had a friend who had died in an auto accident as a teenager. “They gave away all her organs,” she recalled. “We discussed it as a family.

As their friends rallied around them in their time of tragedy, the Weiners learned that two people in their extended circle of friends were in need of donor organs – one liver and one kidney.

“We were able to bequeath them,” said Rhonda.

“It’s closure,” said Amber, an assistant district attorney in San Antonio.

“I’m glad we got to help. We met the family members of a man who got the kidney.”

Although he hasn’t met his donor, Fleming Mitchell, 60, appreciates the fleeting nature of life more than most. He dodged a bullet in the form of a speeding car when it crashed into the ambulance carrying his donor heart. At the time of the crash, Mitchell lay splayed on the operating table, a hole in his chest where that heart belonged.

Fortunately, the accident didn’t damage the organ, and the courier hoofed it to the hospital, the heart was hooked up and, in another good sign, began beating on its own.

Since his transplant, Mitchell said, “I’m enjoying life. I appreciate life more. Each day we wake up … we don’t know. You never know.”

The northwest San Antonio resident now works at Ken Batchelor Caddilac and golfs three or four days a week.

“The only thing that bothers me: I would really love to meet the family of my donor. It’s a female’s heart, that’s all I know.”

Jimmy Cashion knows his donor pretty well. He received his own bone marrow in an autologous transplant that cured his multiple myeloma, a blood disorder.

The Waring resident, a retired teacher, said his only symptom of his illness was that he felt somewhat weak, but that was debilitating enough for a man who was used to working 10-0and 12-hour days.

Through advances in modern medicine, Cashion was able to “rescue” himself with harvested cells after high-dose chemotherapy eradicated his diseased marrow.

“You know this is a pep rally, said his wife, Elaine, amidst the balloons and barbecue. “This is what it should be for.”

“One of the things I’m concerned about,” said Rhonda Weiner, “is that (some organ recipients) got their miracles, but for that to happen, someone has to pass away. There is survivor’s guilt.”

Recipients should take the gift gladly, she said.

The woman who received her husband’s kidney lays claim to it now. “It’s not his kidney. It’s hers, not his,” Rhonda said. “He’s not using it anymore.”