Thanksgiving gratitude is often forgotten during the holidays as we rush around to visit family members, make loads of food and shop until our wallets ache. We get so caught up in the mundane habits of the holidays that we forget what truly fills our souls and makes our hearts sing.
This season our family was more grateful than ever as my husband celebrated his 5-year post double lung transplant anniversary. However, my heart was filled once again when I received an email from someone that I never thought I would never have the opportunity to meet.
As you probably already know, the Angel Cove Organ Donation Awareness Gift Shop will begin donating 100% of all its profits to the UW-Madison Hospital Laurie Ferber Transplant Fund, starting January 1, 2010, to help other transplant recipients and their families afford the medical costs associated with a heart or lung organ transplant. It was just our way of giving back to those in need as we truly believe that no one should ever been denied a life-saving miracle transplant nor go without medical care or medications.
That is why this email was such a shock. The day after Thanksgiving greeted me with an email that I had read over and over again to make sure that it was real.
I am honored and humbled to find out today that you donated the money to the Laurie Ferber Heart Lung Transplant fund. Laurie was my wife and we started the fund after her death in 1991. Thanks so much for your support, and the help you are giving UW Hospital. Laurie was a very special lady so caring and always put others before herself, even though she was the one that needed the help. I can’t thank you enough, so I will just say it from my 2 girls and myself Thank-You!!!!
Yes, the email was from the husband of Laurie Ferber thanking me for donating to the fund started in his wife’s name!
It was humbling, to say the least. My heart leapt and my eyes filled with tears. Yes, he was grateful for what we are doing to help others in need but I was grateful for his wife, Laurie, and the fund that they started all those years ago. This was truly my holiday miracle and words cannot express my joy in knowing that we can help spread the miracle of organ donation through this wonderful fund started by a special lady and her family.
Thank you to the Ferber family and God bless you!
