Inwardly I raged against Jenny’s religion, her God, and yes against her. She had a chance at life, at health. How could she refuse it? Damn the religion that told her to destroy our hope! But showing my rage would make it harder to persuade her. Besides, it was time to help her into bed. The doctor’s visit had exhausted Jenny, and she quickly dropped off to sleep. She looked as peaceful as a saint in a stained-glass window and as fragile.
On a spring day ten years ago, a petite young woman with a pixie haircut pushed a shopping cart piled high with groceries across our college campus. Some cans fell from the top of the pile. I picked them up and offered to help push the cart. Jenny’s bright blue eyes widened in a smile that lit up the world.
Jenny led me to the food pantry at a local church, where an obese woman with a loud cough sat on the stoop and puffed on a cigarette. Jenny sat next to the woman and said in a cheery voice, “Good morning Mrs. Simpson, I hope you feel better. Come on inside, we’ve got tomato soup—your favorite.”
Mrs. Simpson might have been better off if she used the money she spent on cigarettes to buy her own soup. Still, something in Jenny’s kindness to her touched me. Because of that, and to spend time with Jenny, I began to help in the food pantry—just one day a week. Soon my life revolved around Jenny. We married the week after graduation and settled down for a blissful four years of health.
Then came four years of sickness. Cardiomyopathy attacked her heart and began a deterioration that doctors could slow but never stop. I did what I could for her, including learning how to draw her blood for the tests that never found any hope. Nothing stopped the disease. Every halting step she took, every moan she made, every tear she shed reminded me of how helpless I was.
Only a new heart could save her, but the chance of that was slim. People who needed hearts far outnumbered the donors. The hospital put her on a waiting list, but she’d likely die waiting.
