While my husband pushed my wheelchair through the endless corridors of John F. Kennedy International Airport I closed my eyes, longing to be back in Trinidad with a cool ocean breeze caressing my face. Winston and I often visited New York City and kept a small apartment in the borough of Queens, but this September trip in 1994 wasn’t planned.
I’d been having complications from diabetes, and then I spent a few days in the hospital after falling on the terrazzo at our house in Port of Spain. When my doctors advised going abroad for more care, Winston booked a flight immediately.
In the car from the airport I clutched the box of coconut sugar cakes and tamarind balls I’d brought along, my daughter Deborah’s favorites. Debbie lived in an apartment three doors from ours. What will I tell her? I wondered. She was my firstborn, close to me in a unique way, and I hated to burden her with my troubles.
She didn’t know I hadn’t been well, and I hadn’t told her about my fall. But I was much thinner than when she’d last seen me, only a few months before. At our apartment Debbie took one look and pulled me into her arms. “Sleep and rest,” she said, leading me to the sofa. “I’ll take care of you.”
“Who’s the mother and who’s the child?” I asked with a smile. But weakened and exhausted, I was more grateful than ever for her warm embrace.
Taking things slow, I was still unpacking the following afternoon. Winston had gone to do the shopping. It suddenly seemed very hot, but opening the windows brought me no relief. My chest ached as I gasped for air. I telephoned Debbie. “Please, come quick,” I whispered.
She took me to a neighborhood clinic, and then I was rushed by ambulance to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital. I’d had a mild heart attack, and my kidneys were failing. For three days Debbie refused to leave my side. She held my hand and prayed with me to our good God for his help. Winston couldn’t even convince her to go home for a quick shower.
Only dialysis would save me, the doctors concluded. If I consented to the difficult treatment I’d have to endure it for the rest of my life. What should I do, God? I prayed. I know I can’t trust you and doubt you at the same time, but in my heart I am afraid. For years I’d taken medication and tried not to think about my diabetes. Now I had to admit I was gravely ill. Reluctantly, I agreed to dialysis.
Winston and I had to stay in Queens indefinitely while I underwent treatments at St. John’s three times a week. The winter blizzards had me yearning for our tropical island and the jasmine that perfumed the air. I wanted to kneel once more in the Cathedral of All Saints, where I’d gone to services every Sunday growing up, and where Winston and I had been married.
When spring neared I dreamed about hearing the steel-band music of Carnival. Most of all, I wanted to get better. Dialysis only made me feel worse.
Eventually Winston had to return home to Trinidad to check on things. I was in good hands with Debbie, but I worried that my poor health was taking a toll on her.
One afternoon she met me at the hospital, happier than I’d seen her in months. “I’ve been doing some research,” she said. Debbie then told me about the Rogosin Institute, a kidney transplant center in Manhattan. I learned that the success rate for the procedure is close to 100 percent. “No more dialysis,” Debbie said, her eyes glowing. “You’re going to be well again.”
“You mean, someone is going to give me a kidney?” I asked.
“Yes, Ma,” Debbie told me.
“Who would do that?”
My daughter stepped closer to me. “I would.”
I covered my face with my hands. Mothers make such sacrifices for their children, maybe, but the other way around? It wasn’t right. She was so young, with her whole life ahead of her. I’d never let her do it. “Never,” I said.
“We’ll both have to be tested,” Debbie continued stubbornly. “We may not be compatible, but I’m betting we are.”
“Debbie, you’re not listening. I won’t let you do this. And that’s final.”
But Debbie was persistent, and I couldn’t ignore the hope in her eyes whenever she talked about a transplant. I couldn’t ignore what I was seeing in the mirror, either. I was getting thinner and weaker all the time. Finally I read over the information she had brought home from the National Kidney Foundation. God, can you be telling me this is my answer?
“If you don’t want my kidney, that’s just fine,” Debbie teased, when she saw me studying the material. “But please put yourself on a waiting list for somebody else’s.” Maybe there’s a chance that we wouldn’t be compatible, after all.
With my medical history the doctors said I wasn’t a good risk, but in March 1995 we began two months of examinations in Manhattan, Debbie’s at the Rogosin Institute and mine at New York-Cornell Hospital. The procedures were hard for me, but my daughter’s were even harder. She had to be extremely fit if an operation were going to take place. I could see the increasing strain in her face.
One day she spent hours on an operating table with wires threaded through her arteries to test her kidneys. “Enough!” I said. I decided to put a stop to the testing, the talk of a transplant, and the far-fetched hopes, once and for all. I would just continue on dialysis for whatever time I had left. “You do not have to suffer, Debbie. This is my illness.”
“Remember that Christmas you were so sick?” Debbie asked. Of course I remembered. Debbie was nine years old. I could still see her, sitting at my feet in our kitchen in Port of Spain. I was very ill, but it was Christmas Eve. I had to get the fruitcakes and ham ready. The baking took all night, and Debbie stayed up with me, begging me to let her finish while I rested.
“You were flat in bed all the next day,” Debbie said, her voice defiant. “Your stubbornness spoiled Christmas for all of us! You should have let me help you then, Ma, and you must listen to me now.”
It was easy to see where her stubbornness had come from. She had learned everything she could about the transplant operation and seemed sure about what she was getting into. But how could I ever say yes?
She sat at my feet, just as she had years ago. “Please, Ma, I can do this,” she said. “I can live a normal life with one kidney, and you will die unless you let me help you.”
I finally gave in. Despite the odds, Debbie and I had passed all the tests. We not only had the same blood type, we matched in four of six blood elements when most donors match in only two. Still I had misgivings. Am I doing the right thing? I asked God. Am I?
Debbie and I were in the hospital for the final tests two days before the operation, which was set for August 8, 1995. An Asian couple came in just as a nurse called us to the examining room. The woman was lovely, perhaps my age, but radiant with health. She smiled at us as we passed.
“This is my brother,” she said proudly. “Ten days ago he gave me his kidney and the doctors just gave us both a positive report. Isn’t it wonderful?” I reached for Debbie’s hand and squeezed as tight as I could. “Yes, wonderful,” I said, tears brimming up in my eyes.
The operation was a complete success. Afterward, I was eager to tell the Asian woman how she’d put my mind at ease. No one at the hospital could place her. There was no transplant patient with an appointment that day who fit her description. But I had no reason to look for her, not really. She’d been sent to find me.
