Normally I turn to Jeremy and Kate to be the public voice of
our transplant, but today I decided to venture out and actually write a blog
post myself. You’ll have to forgive me as I can’t quite capture humor in
writing as Jeremy does, or details like Kate. They are both weighing heavily on
my mind right now. I’m sitting in the Atlanta airport waiting on my flight to
North Carolina to board. I’ve just left from my first visit to see them since
the surgery. It is actually my first time flying since I spent a month in
California with my family in 2009. Jeremy and I (admittedly, mostly Jeremy)
have been secretly planning this trip for over a month. Kate turns 30 on the 30th,
and this visit was a birthday surprise. What a great husband, right?! And yes,
I’m required to sing his praises since he did give me a kidney and all.
We just passed our 3 month anniversary, or more aptly, our 3
month transplantversary on May 21st. Perhaps that is why I felt so
full of emotion on the flight down. Every time I visualized the look of
surprise on Kate’s face I would well up and have to swallow down any urge to
cry. I’m not big on ugly crying in public. The closer we got to West Palm
Beach, the more anxious I began to feel. For a reason I cannot explain, part of
me felt afraid. Eventually I reached the airport and went to meet them outside.
When they pulled up, Kate sat blindfolded in the front seat of the door-less
Jeep. Jeremy had blindfolded her so she
wouldn’t be able to guess her surprise. When he took her blindfold off, a huge
smile took over her face and we hugged for what must have been a good 5
minutes. I could hear the people surrounding us laughing. I imagine we were
quite the sight! I would like to say
that all of the feelings I was having on the plane melted away when I saw their
Jeep pull up to get me, but that was not the case. When I realized I was going
to have to ride in a Jeep without any doors, I can honestly say I knew exactly
why I felt afraid at that moment! I buckled myself in securely and would occasionally
close my eyes on the ride home whenever I was sure we were going to wreck and I
was about to die.
We spent my time there in a timeshare on the beach in
Delray, Florida. We relaxed, shared wonderful, if not enlightening,
conversation, laughed, and ate some delicious food. Kate and I were both
reading The Hunger Games, she was finishing The Hunger Games and starting
Catching Fire and I was finishing Catching Fire and starting Mockingjay. Our first night there, we stayed on the beach
until dark reading. Then we stayed to catch up on one another’s lives, while
periodically going on tangents and laughing at ourselves. You know ... the kind
of moments memories are made of. I got to see her family, who are as close to
my heart as my own family, and I got to meet some of the people from Kate and
Jeremy’s small group. When we went to church on Sunday morning, one couple from
the small group gave me a card that was from everyone in the group. Inside the
card was a beautiful message and a very generous gift. I was pretty surprised
and very thankful.
On Sunday, Kate’s sister Amy, her husband Nathan, and their
children Alivia and Jackson came to visit us in Delray. Both Alivia and Jackson
were little water bugs. Jackson, being not even a year old, stayed in my arms
the whole time we were in the pool … and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
He was the most precious thing I have experienced in a long time. He just
laughed and squealed and enjoyed the world around him. It’s that kind of
genuine happiness that I think most of us lose as we get older. It takes more
and more to make us feel even the slightest bit of complacency. We just want and want and want, without even
noticing the simplest joy. Even Alivia was alternating between enjoying the
water herself and taking in the antics of her little brother.
While they were
there, we had ourselves a little barbeque. Or at least, we attempted it. Jeremy
manned the grill while Nathan cut and prepared the watermelon and the rest of
us prepared the sides, plates and drinks. Nathan and Amy took turns feeding
Jackson. We had ourselves a nice little feast: shrimp, chorizo, bratwurst, corn
on the cob, chips, potato salad and watermelon. The meat and the corn were on
the grill still cooking when the bottom fell out of the sky. I’m not talking
about a little rain, or even a medium amount of rain. I’m talking about
lightening, thunder and rain so heavy it flooded the canopy we were huddled
under…plates in hands, hopelessly devouring the food Jeremy and Nathan were
running out to the grill with towels draped over their heads to secure for us.
I think I may have actually eaten almost an entire pound of shrimp. No
exaggeration. I also helped myself to the chorizo, a brat, some corn, and a big
helping of potato salad. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to
get my hands clear of all the shrimp debris until I was able to get under a
faucet with some soap, I had Alivia hand feed me cool ranch Doritos. She was a
bit cheeky, feeding me mere morsels while saving the large chips for herself. I
can’t blame her though, they are delicious. Once the rain had died down and we
had cleaned everything up, we all went to Dairy Queen. I was way too full to
eat ice cream, but everyone else seemed to be in Hog Heaven
.
The experiences I had over these past few days remind me of
why Kate and I became friends in the first place, how we grew so close and why
it was so easy to welcome Jeremy into my life with open arms – even before I
knew he wanted to date Kate. There is easiness between us. We don’t have to
try, we can just be. We don’t have to talk, we just automatically understand.
Kate and I, by all superficial accounts, are polar opposites. She is a Florida
girl, almost everything in her wardrobe is either pink, sea foam, or turquoise.
I’m Carolina born and bred – I could live the rest of my life in the middle of
nowhere riding a horse and reading a book and never once complain. Unless
someone asked me to do those 2 things at the same time. But, we think the same
and we love the same … without abandon and without the care of taking a risk.
We both believe that without the risk, it’s probably not worth our time and
definitely not worth repeating as a story later on!
And that is where Jeremy fits so wonderfully into our
puzzle, friend…husband…friend. He is identical to us in those respects. He is
the biggest risk taker of us all. The man wielding metal tongs racing out in a
lightning storm to rescue our barbeque.
The man who reminds the two of us, and anyone else in his life, to hold
themselves accountable – not just to themselves, but to God. The man who wants
to go skiing right before donating his kidney.
And there you have it … the man willing to lay his life down for those
he loves…to allow the doctors at UNC to put him through test after test and
then to trust them with his life knowing he will wake up in pain, with one less
vital organ. And for what? For me? No, it’s more than just for me. It’s for
God. The one being he loves more than anyone else in this world. That is the
man whose kidney I now hold in my body. That is the friend I am leaving behind
as I return to North Carolina. But there is solace in the fact that a piece of
him remains, forever, with me. And a piece of my friend Kate who, without, I
would have never gone on that first mission trip, therefore never meeting
Jeremy, stays with me as well. Perhaps not in my body, but in my heart. And I
think that’s as good a place as any.
