Running Stitch

This post is not the post I hoped it would be, it was harder to write than I thought. The words are stuck in my head, hiding from me because there is a part of my brain that this story absolutely terrifies.

This is Lee. He is 20 years old. (And no, he is not for sale, settle down there.) I met Lee sixteen years ago when he was five and I was seventeen on that same Camping trip I regale you with tales of each May.

Sixteen years ago, Lee was a mass of curly brown hair that was circling and jiving its way around the campground. Hooting and hollering with the sea of children that were always underfoot in those years. Running a muck under the shelter of the trees and tarps as they played capture the flag, hide and go seek and the always fun, knock over the adults.

I can’t help putting my boys in this story, doesn’t every mother do that? Memories of that sea of children rampaging through the campground are now overlapped by memories of my boys tramping the same paths.

Lee is apart of my Camping Family, a family that holds a reunion every memorial day. This year Lee didn’t make it to our camping trip, because in March he received a brand new heart and the risk of infection while camping in the damp Oregon Coast weather with 50 of your closest friends was kinda high, apparently.

Hobbit gathering 2008, Minus Lee

In November of this year we heard that Lee was in the hospital with heart problems and needed a transplant. You can read about the nightmare Lee and his family went through late last year and early in 2008 on Lee’s father’s blog. So Far? So Good.

At the end of Oct. he was working out in the gym and had abdominal pain. It didn’t go away so he went to see a Dr. The doc said come back in two weeks. But six hours later the pain was so strong he checked himself into the Newberg emergency room. They did tests and found out that his heart was enlarged and was only operating at 10% efficiency.

-from Gil’s blog (his dad) read more here.

Here I imagine Carmen, Lee’s Mother. And I think about that moment on the playground when I lost sight of my four year old, and as his father ran in circles looking and I stood rooted to the spot, helpless, standing guard over my sleeping two year old, I could feel the panic and the fear building inside of me. Building and building as I watched Scott become more and more panicked as he search for our baby and finally the fear and panic burst out of me as I YELLED my son’s name. I yelled it in that voice that every parent there immediately recognized as ABSOLUTE FEAR. My world Froze. And then the strawberry head popped into view, he had been off looking at another boy’s toys, away from the playground and he was fine. And the whole thing was about two minutes of my life. Two minutes. That seemed to take forever, that I can remember with such clarity that even now my insides tighten at the memory. A Parent’s fear, can not be accurately described and I can’t find any words to say to that women Carmen was in October of 2007, because my own fear paralyzes me.

In January the email went out that Lee’s heart had failed and he was on a temporary machine and then finally on March 31st of this year Lee had a heart transplant. A brand new heart after three months of waiting for one.

I wrote a few days ago about those moments that rock you to your core, and Lee’s hospitalization was one of them. Because in my minds eye? Lee is 6, 7, 8, or even 9, but he is not 20, in the hospital in need of a heart being kept alive by machines. Just Waiting.

He is 12. And tumbling out of his dad’s car, rushing the campground.

He is 17. A man. Hanging with the Men round the fire.

He is playing guitar next to his father around the campfire. He is laughing with his sister, he is watching out for the younger kids he is making me turn to his mother and say “I hope, that my sons are half the son yours is”.

(Lee’s Dad, Gil and sister Linzie in one of those moment that epitomize their family’s connection to each other …also Linzie probably hates this picture but I love it, because to me she is still twelve. Sorry babe)

Obviously Lee’s medical expenses are great. His father, a well know Oregon Glass blower has organized an online glass auction to help defer medical costs.

Due to the geographical distance between artists, an online auction event was chosen as the medium to show their support.These talented artists will express their creativity in various glass art forms to show their collective “Heartbeat” for Lee Reynolds

-from gil’s blog So Far, So good.

You can read more about the auction by clicking on the link to Gil’s blog.

I can’t afford a piece of Gil’s glass, but I want to be apart of the spirit of giving that surrounds it.

Sooo.

I’ve started a ChipIn page.

I’m not asking much, $5 dollars here, $10 dollars there. Maybe you could skip your coffee today in celebration of a young man who gets a second chance, maybe you could save ten dollars riding your bike to work today, and tomorrow in celebration of your heart pumping blood to your legs.

It’s easy. Click on the ChipIn! Button and watch the money thermometer rise. And tell a friend, ask them from me, to help pay for Lee’s heart.

Thank you.