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Open Letter to An Organ Donor: Samuel Flegel (8/31/78-1/11/00)


“it is a serious thing,
just to be alive,
on this fresh morning,
in this broken world.”
— Mary Oliver, ‘Invitation’


My god, Samuel, we are here.

We had to tiptoe hell’s half-acre the past couple days, but by god we made it: A QUARTER CENTURY together! Twenty-five years, with you literally at the hips the whole ride.

Or was it I riding shotgun? After two-and-a-half decades, the lines begin to blur, the sutures blend, the scars become creases. We’ve been together longer than apart, keeping time in a rhythm that was never mine to claim.

My god, Samuel, what we’ve done together. The day we met, you taught: Life is brief as a whisper, and twice as faint.

And when we walked from the hospital that frigid Minnesota morning, I knew there was no turning round. I was through writing about crime, even if it meant quitting an occupation I loved. I was done asking the mothers of dead kids how they felt.

I knew how they felt. I was alive because of how they felt.

So we moved out West. And somehow got assigned to cover the movies, even appeared in one! We sat in Jack Nicholson’s living room!

And we rode our bikes for miles in the California sun.

My god, Samuel, what we’ve seen. We have lost fathers and father figures. We have buried some who should have long outlived us, including Sis. And Michael. And Richard. And Kevin. Ad infinitum.

But for nearly every of our 9,131 days together, you have represented life. We became ordained to officiate a magical wedding of a magical couple. We discovered the love of dogs, and they have loved us back seven-fold. We have taken up poetry.

My god Samuel, what you have taught me. Since you, I know that science is a faith; that time ticks up, not down; that hope resides not in grand gestures, but quiet choices.

Since you, my job has been simple: See tomorrow, sing your praises. So I do. Every. Single. Day. I’m as obnoxious about drivers licenses as a bouncer in a dank bar. But HAVUSGNDURLCNS2DAY? won’t fit on a vanity plate. Thus I harangue dog park passersby during the day.

At night, I think of immeasurables. How do you thank a man for curing your diabetes? What cost, ideal blood sugar? How do you make square the debt to a stranger who offers a kidney? Words could never capture your last morning becoming my first sunrise.

My god Samuel.

You are my second birthday, my courage incarnate, my love embodied. It took only a childhood of books and 25 years of your wisdom, but I finally get Seuss: Sam I am, and Guy am I. And I may be wrong, but I could swear I see a six and a zero in the not too far off. But you taught me to never assume health or time, and I will do neither.

So stand up, stretch your legs, admire the stratosphere. You’ve turned off the seat belt light; now chat up the first-class cabin about your unmatched flying skills.

And think of what you would like to see next. With you in the co-pilot seat, anywhere feels possible.


Open Letter to an Organ Donor (Samuel Flegel 8/31/78-1/11/2000)


My dearest Samuel,

This marks the first anniversary letter I’ve written to you with an ounce of hesitance. Not for any bad news, though there was some. 

I pause because my mother raised me to fear the jinx. But I believe in you more than any superstition, so to hell with it. 

You see, we met 24! years ago today. Which puts us within a calendar year of a QUARTER-CENTURY together. And, parenthetically, me within spitting distance (five months) of 60 effing years old.

Neither milestone seemed feasible when we began our odyssey in 2000. There were only two hospitals in the nation that even attempted pancreatic transplants, and docs said that the organ lifespan averaged seven years, given successful surgery. Throw in the required kidney transplant, and all forecasts or expectations should go out the window, docs said. 

So out they went. It wasn’t hard; when I caught diabetes at 13, the notion of seeing 60 seemed as far-fetched as me dunking. That’s old age. Granny’s sixty, right, from the black and white pictures?

But then we crossed paths, and suddenly I’m touching rim. 

I know it’s you, lifting me during a layup so lil’ slugger can soar. But air is air. Even when it’s getting thin.

And it’s been thin this year. We lost sis, whose last stop came three nights before Halloween. You would have loved her fire; not so much her rain.

And you know about the back/rib break. Sorry for rattling the windows. This house is creaky as get out. 

But here we are, on the 26th of 25 moonlit miles. The home stretch.

I am being melodramatic. Should I reject tomorrow, today would be no less remarkable, if only for all the ground we have broken so far.

Twenty-four years of not being diabetic. Twenty-four years of standing our ground. Twenty-four years of thinking about you Every. Single. Day.

And I ain’t one for final stops. Gimme late charges all day, anyday. 

So let’s sprint the finish, Sam. And leave the gym door open. We’ll run the mystic marathon as long as these heels still kick dust. 

Just Sign on The Donor Line…


Open Letter to an Organ Donor: Samuel Flegel (8/31/78-1/11/2000) 

Dear Sam,

It’s odd, how compelled I feel to write you on this day. It’s the day we met, yes. But it meant such starkly different things to each of us and the people who loved us. Love us.

Twenty-three years on the blade. Can you believe it?

Of course you can. You allowed it to be. Or whispered ‘And so it goes.’

For the longest time, I thought of you as mine. Literally, like something I owned, as a parent might think of a child, or an animal lover their pet. After all, you were 14 years my junior at the transplant. Just a kid on a motorcycle, coming home from a party.

Sam

But they must have transplanted something beyond organs that day. Because lately, you have been more like bigger brother than younger charge. A big brother who keeps hammering me with a singular message:

‘Embrace the beautiful sorrows.’

It took a couple decades, but I think I’m beginning to catch on. To spot — and accept — the profound moments when bitter must follow sweet, if only for their passing, just as sweet must trail bitter, if only for their presence.

I think we had one of those moments the day we met. I think we have one with every blood test that goes well, every eye exam that goes poorly, every number that inhabits limbo. Or, as you would have it, south of great, north of hopeless.

It’s been a while since I felt hopeless, and that has to be your doing, your consciousness at work, right? It’s as if a note came with your kidney and pancreas: ‘It’s not enough to live this life. Insist on it.’

So I try to barge. I try to smile, genuinely, at least once a day. I try to laugh, genuinely, at least once a day. The dogs make that possible, though I still often fail.

I try to cry, genuinely, at least once a day. You make that possible, though I often fail there, too, because if I think too hard about it, I sometimes cry a lot.

But you welcome all hypocriticals, especially the ones about seizing sunlight and sniffing roses when some days you’re just trying to get tomorrow in the bag.

Since Covid, I find myself dropping into virtual college lectures on the sciences, from biology to astronomy to physics to math, a class I never took beyond high school. Now I’m convinced math is a faith. That’s you too, right?

Lately, I’ve been consumed by the notion of the multiverse. I love contemplating the quantum possibilities of our seismic days.

What if you hadn’t had the motorcycle crash? What if I hadn’t had diabetes?

Would you read my stories? Would I ride your trains? Would we be friends, fathers, famous? It’s all possible, the physicists say. And I’m all-in on science.

So I believe. I believe that you were at the transom of the multiverse on that day, making sure the rearviews were folded back and the windshield was spotless. I believe you found me. I believe that, like Han Solo ledged over the carbonite bath, you grinned, winked, and said ‘Seeing more yesterdays than tomorrows ain’t exactly a calamity, kid.’

And you were gone. And we were off. And it still makes me cry, a lot sometimes.

What a beautiful sorrow.