Kindness

At work, we are having a blood drive; something that we do periodically. I heard the nurses telling some of the folks giving blood how short they were on two types of blood,. My heart and mind went back to a day that I try hard not to remember – the day my daughter needed blood.

Erin was six and was in an automobile accident. Her injuries were massive and sadly, very common to unrestrained small children - particularly, for children who are in the front passenger seat.

An 150 to 160 pound adult, has between 4 and 5 quarts of blood in their body. A 80 pound child, about half that. A six year old child has less.

During simultaneous neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery and abdominal surgery, Erin needed 27 adult units of blood.

Blood isn’t something that can be manufactured. Blood comes from people, and it’s not cheap. We had good insurance that would pay anything that was needed, but there is no price on replacements for blood banks.

Erin’s uncle was a Kanawha County Deputy Sheriff. He told his friends that his little niece was near death and needed blood. Within hours, every Deputy, all the local police, State Police in our county, and Emergency Medical Personnel, had filled the local blood banks.

Erin was just too hurt to live and we lost her four days later, but I never forgot the kindness of those who gave their own blood to try and save her. For years, my mind stayed stuck in the horror of that day. Very suddenly, I was healed.

I did not heal over time – but in one moment. That story is for another day.

As all the hurt and left, I very suddenly saw the incredible blessings that God had bestowed on me that day.

There was the accident scene itself. What are the odds that on a country road, the first car to arrive seconds later was driven by an off duty Paramedic and his police officer wife?

How likely was it that the volunteer ambulance was returning from a call, and was fully staffed, fully stocked with replacement medical supplies, and only minutes away?

Erin’s grandmother worked for the Chief of Staff of the local trauma center and by the time the ambulance reached the hospital, the teams were assembled, and the surgeons all scrubbed and ready.

When Erin died, her Aunt Lois came to me and asked about Erin’s hair. I had never even thought about it. Her long thick blond hair had been shaved for emergency neurosurgery. I didn’t want her in a bonnet. She was so proud of being a big girl – going into second grade, and she would have hated looking like a baby. I told Lois that I really didn’t mind the massive helmet of gauze, but what I would really like was something pretty – but not babyish.

At her funeral, Erin wore a scarf tied in the back, with bangs and wisps of long hair coming out of the part of the material that framed her face.

This story is about kindness. A friend who worked at the funeral home told me of Lois washing my child’s shaved hair matted with blood, until it was clean. She told me of Lois lovingly placing each hair on Erin’s bald head, and then trimming it to perfection, as she wept the entire time.

Kindness was in my friend Carol who just let me sit and cry, and who never told me to stop. Kindness was in people who cared for my son when his dad and I were just into much pain to do it ourselves.

There was a friend who asked me to lunch a few weeks later and asked what she could do to help. She was a legislator, and almost as an angry taunt, I told her to change the seatbelt law.

A state senator lost a young son that summer, and I lost a daughter. The father and my friend, gave West Virginia a Child Restraint Law that has saved God only knows how many children’s lives.

Recently, once again when I have seen the worst of people, I have also seen the very best. I have seen two men who don't just walk their faith, who have stepped out in love and behaved like followers of Christ.

In the face of terrible loss, I have learned who my friends are, in people who have stepped forward while others have hidden or worse, walked away.

Today at a blood drive, I remembered kindness, and chose to write about it. If you recognize yourself, please know that I am choosing to tell you that I will always appreciate you, always pray for you, and will always honor anything that you have done for me and for my family.

My greatest desire is to give someone someday what has been given to me. Thank you, and you know who you are!