Category: Bo, Jack, Mark — and Donna

The Gift Of Life

That's me and Elijah
That’s me with Elijah.

My 20-year-old grandson, Elijah Riley Gordy-Stith, was shot to death one year ago this week. Police said he was trying to rob someone’s home.

Elijah made a bad decision and paid a terrible price. But what you may not know is that the way Elijah died did not cause the people who loved him to love him any less. Or hurt any less.

What some of you also may not know is that God often salvages good things from life’s worst events.

People who read about his death in the newspaper saw only one page of Elijah’s life, but there was much more. He had survived a traumatic childhood before my son, Bo, and his wife, Vicki, asked him to become part of their family.

Elijah Riley Gordy-Stith
Elijah Riley Gordy-Stith

“Elijah’s beautiful green eyes stole our hearts, as he gave his heart to us,” they said in his obituary. “A patient teacher, Elijah always made time for others, especially children. His fun-loving and goofy side cheered us up whenever we were down. Elijah always found a way to smile in adversity.”

The obituary said he died as he lived, giving life and love to others: Elijah was an organ donor. And, months after Elijah’s death, Bo and Vicki received this letter:

“I am the 35-year-old woman who received the precious heart from your loved one. I know that there are no words that can truly express my feelings for your family. It takes a special kind of person to make such a sacrifice in their time of grief and need.”

Elijah with his brother, Eli, and sister, Joy.
Elijah with his brother, Eli, and sister, Joy.

“Your loved one and your family are in my thoughts and prayers every day. I can never express the gratitude I have for this second chance at life. I can promise you that I will try to live up to the example set by your love one and touch and help as many people as possible in a positive way.”

“I thought you might like to know that things are going well with my new heart. Before my gift, I had a LVAD, which is a heart pump, for 364 days. My heart EF [heart failure measurement] was at 8% when I got the pump. I had cancer as a teenager and chemo caused a lot of damage. At 28, I had my daughter. She is 6 now. Thanks to your gift, I will be able to see her grow up, which before didn’t look promising.”

“Saying thank you just doesn’t seem like enough when a stranger saves your life. Your family have changed my complete outlook on life and everything it stands for. I sincerely hope that life treats your family to nothing but happiness and prosperity.”

Coming Monday: Wasting Taxpayers’ Money

Our Fourth Child

My wife, Donna, was in her sixth month when she miscarried what would have been our fourth child, and I was relieved.

Before we were married we had talked about having five children. Seven, maybe. We wanted a big family.

Our oldest, Bo, was born at the end of my sophomore year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was as healthy as could be, physically and mentally.  Our twins, Jack and Mark, were born a little more than two years later, a month after I graduated.

Mark was just like his big bother; Jack, however, was not.

Eighteen months later, after performing a battery of tests, doctors at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill told us that Jack was profoundly retarded. One of them advised us to put him in a state institution, which we did not do.

They also told us –wrongly, it turned out — that our risk of having another mentally handicapped child was one in four. That was a risk we were not willing to take and we put aside our dreams of a large family.

Donna and I were careful to use birth control but she got pregnant anyway, with an intrauterine device [IUD] in place.

That was the only time in my life that I have been truly afraid. I didn’t know if I could keep on keeping on if we had a second mentally handicapped child.  I didn’t know if I could man up.

And then we lost our baby and, God help me, I was relieved.

Coming Monday: The Critic [Me]