healthy heart could be implanted, his own
heart would have to be removed. Once surgery
began, there would be no turning back. With
all these thoughts in the back of their minds,
Bill and Jill roused themselves in the predawn
dark, preparing themselves and Brody for the
fateful journey to the hospital. Once there,
they saw their son wheeled off on a gurney.
We, also, must go through a kind of death
first. Just as Brody had to allow surgeons to
remove his own heart before a transplant,
so we must give up on our natural heart.
We must recognize that we need more
than a touch-up here and there, more than
a minor adjustment or correction—we
need radical surgery. Nothing less will do.
This frightening risk provided one reason
Brody and his parents dreaded the call that
a heart had become available. And although
Brody’s parents rejoiced at the opportunity for
a better life for their son, another, more somber
reality intruded. They recognized that the same
event that gave them new hope had dashed the
hopes of some other family. Brody’s chance at
life came at the cost of someone else’s death.