JUNE 23, 2006

Today is a special anniversary. Two years ago today, Mom and I underwent our miraculous living donor liver transplant surgery.

The other day, on the 21st, Tina and I visited University Hospital, where the surgery - and all else efter it, both encouraging and devastating - took place. We went specifically because I had to. I am part of a long-term research study on living liver donors; so I have to go in once a year for blood tests and questionnaires regarding my overall physical health, and mental and emotional well-being, since the surgery. Also, though, we went to visit with some very special people in the hepatology department. These are people who played such an important role in our lives; and in Mom's life...and transition into the afterlife. In fact, the way I perceive it, Mom's doctors, and some of the other members of the transplant team, played virtually ANGELIC roles in the most sacred rite of passage of her life. They were also central to our support network throughout the whole time Mom was ill, going through surgery, and moving toward that ethereal light at the end of the dark tunnel of her declining health afterward. In some respect, that group of people knew better than anyone else in the world what we were going through. They not only knew...they empathized. They cared. They went through it with us. And they still care.

We visited with Michael Talamantes, the transplant team social worker, whose heart is genuine and sweet, and whose presence and support have always been so very comforting to our family. We also had the chance to see Dr. Wachs, who was one of the three doctors central to Mom's care from the point of surgery to the last breath.

It is certainly hard to go back to that place. The smells...The smell of rubber gloves, the cafeteria buffet, and antiseptic hospital cleansers intermingle, and jab directly through the olfactory sense into the most primal center of memory and emotion. That part of it is terribly painful. But - as always - there is the side of the situation that is the GIFT in it all. And after honoring my tears for what deep pain we all went through in that hospital, I chose to focus on the beauty that transpired there...all of which transpired out of LOVE...the miracle of Human Life...and the brilliant hope of the Spiritual Afterlife!

As we talked with Michael and Dr. Wachs, I brought up the fact that I would be really interested in SEEING a living donor liver transplant. I told them I am terribly intrigued by such an amazing procedure, and as I talked, I reveled even more in just how awesome it is that I get to be a part of this ongoing research in such a revolutionary field of medicine.

Later that afternoon, Tina dropped me off at my old house, where Micah and Josh still live. It has been wonderful to see both of them, and to be back at the "old homestead" on Delaware st. again. Micah and I headed out for the BODY WORLDS exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This was something I had heard of upon returning home, and was DYING (no pun intended) to see! In case you haven't heard of it, Body Worlds is a traveling science center exhibit that showcases REAL HUMAN BODIES and body parts, through a process of tissue preservation called plastination.

Anyway...as we arrived, Micah reminded me that it was both the summer solstice...and National Skateboarding Day! This may not mean anything to most people, but was a cool bit of information to me :) I also noted that it happened to be the day resting smack dab in the middle between Mom's birthday and (today) the two-year anniversary of our surgery. This whole five-day period would prove to be very strange and special, in that "way" that I am coming to know as "MOM'S WAY"...the way of her spirit's working and communicating.

We stepped into the exhibit hall, noticing first the display contract, signed by one of the body donors. It struck me...hard. What an awesome thing to do with one's body: donate it to science! And what a HUGE choice we each have the blessed right to make...that which determines what will become of our physical vehicles once our spirits break free to fly on their own! It hit me like a shining stone: THAT WILL BE MY CHOICE: I will donate my body to science. My first thought was to donate it to the actual Body Worlds Project...my next was to donate it to the University of Colorado Hospital research center. I am going to look into both options. After seeing the mind-blowing similarity between coral reef, and human organ systems covered in cappilaries, Micah decided he would like for his body to be used in making nifty saltwater aquariums :)

The whole exhibit was boggling and incredible. One of the models that I really appreciated was the "Dancer". On the placard explaining her positioning, etc., it said that "Dance and balance are possible due to the harmonization of the brain and the muscles". I really liked that. It made me think about the fact that A BALANCED person is the result of the cohesion between the brain and the heart...and such is why exhibits like Body Worlds are so important and advanced; because they are the objective portrayal of accurate science through the emotionally-effective vehicle of Art. As I walked through the exhibit hall, it struck me that LIFE is both so simple, and so profound. Simple, in the sense that every physical piece of every body can be detached from its machine, displayed, and explained with fairly basic language. The whole working system of which each part is a part can be explained. But where it becomes PROFOUND is the incomprehensibility of our own spiritual nature. Looking at these bodies cemented my belief that the spirit is something that lives independently of the brain and musculature, skin and bone.

ONLY ONE of the body models still had its hair...

As Micah and shuffled through the exhibit hall, I reminded him that this very place – known back when as the Denver Museum of Natural History – was where my Mom, Mark and Marci all met some 30 years ago. If you don’t know who Mark and Marci are, it’s a long (though awesome) story. But suffice it to say, they are two people that I love with all my heart and soul, whom I was most absolutely meant to meet, and who have been a crucially integral part of my adult life.

Anyway…Thinking about Mom...about the profoundity of life, and its properties that outlive its physicality...and about Mom's and my awesome experience of having joint surgery...I fixed my gaze upon this model; she was posed as if ballet dancing in Heaven, and had a full head of beautiful red hair. Not only was she dancing; and not only was her hair red. But it so much resembled Mom's hair, I choked up. I was stunned. Her hair was even pulled back in a sort of disheveled pony tail, just like Mom's was much of the time during the last three or four years of her life, and held in place with a sparkly butterfly pendant/clip. We always associate butterflies and butterfly symbolism with Mom and her freely-fluttering spirit. As if all that wasn't enough, the woman was poised just outisde the entrance to the display of Birth and Motherhood, wherein a model of a pregnant woman showed her five-month old fetus inside of her womb...AND...the name they had given her...was ANGEL.

Need I say more?
I think Mom pretty much said it all.