People have all different ways to measure the passage of time. I have several friends who had recently been counting down the seconds until the “Sex and the City” movie premiere…. having seen it, they are now quite without any concept of time. Others use more standard options – watches, calendars, palm pilots etc. As a new mom, my time is marked by nap times and good sleep nights vs. bad ones, and measured in milestones – smiling, laughing, cooing, rolling, and now crawling (more on this later). When you are the AZW, time is measured in heartbeats, and every single one counts.
The average human heart beats 35 million times each year. That means that in the three years since this blog was founded, and Perpetua joined our family, she and the AZW have had over one hundred million heartbeats to share with all of us, and to spend on some pretty incredible things.
On May 11, 2005, my mom went into surgery at 8:00 am, and emerged forever changed – for the better of course. Her heart health having been as weak as her heart strength was strong for a lot of years, she needed a new heart pretty bad, and as we had all prayed for, she got it. Her recovery was very speedy by normal transplant standards, and in no time she had become one of the most resilient and compliant transplant patients ever – an example to many of her peers. Just a few months after her transplant, my baby sister walked down the aisle to marry the man of her dreams, in a beautiful ceremony she and my mom had planned together. It was a celebration of more than their union….it commenced a season of sharing and joy that our family would never have known if not for the sacrifice of her loving donor. Six months after Katie and Henry tied the knot, Scott and I followed suit – now the AZW had two new sons to love. And, in what seemed like no time, both of them had finished their graduate degrees and become doctors of chemistry – both with ambitions to work for pharmaceutical companies creating drugs that would save scores of people just like the AZW. Another graduation followed down the road a bit, when Patick became her third and last child to finish college, no small thanks to the many long years of her help with Spanish homework and study skills. Around the same time that Patrick made his move into the next stage of his life, a new life began when the AZW’s first grandson, Roscoe William, joined the clan. While all of this was going on the AZW and her partner in crime, my dad, became partners in business as well, when they opened Brennan Wealth Management. My dad, as many of you know, is a fabulous financial planner, but organization is not his strong suit, and the AZW manages all of the books, makes all of the cards, cuts all of the paychecks and generally keeps everyone in line. Perpetua must have had some training in accounting, since this all requires a lot of skill and knowledge, and it is remarkable that Mov has become an expert so quickly.
A lot has happened for our family since that fateful May three years ago. Through it all we have seen a lot of changes in other families close to ours as well. There have been marriages and births, a few sad goodbyes, moves, new houses, retirements, break-ups and new loves. Each time any of us has faced a change, the AZW has been there to do what she has always done – lend strength and a shoulder when needed, or to throw up her arms in celebration when she could. We have all needed countless pep-talks, parties, phone calls, lunch dates, “fundraisers” and baby-sitting sessions, and she has been there unfailingly to give them to us. When you divide up the miraculous heartbeats that Perpetua has given her in the last three years among each of the people she has shared them with, and then further to the many people we have been able to touch with her help, we each have a precious few to be grateful for. That is the meaning of making it worth it – my mom has truly taken the gift of an anonymous stranger, and turned it into three years of giving and sharing that makes us all remember that every heartbeat counts!
Here is a recap:
On May 11, 2005, my mom went into surgery at 8:00 am, and emerged forever changed – for the better of course. Her heart health having been as weak as her heart strength was strong for a lot of years, she needed a new heart pretty bad, and as we had all prayed for, she got it. Her recovery was very speedy by normal transplant standards, and in no time she had become one of the most resilient and compliant transplant patients ever – an example to many of her peers. Just a few months after her transplant, my baby sister walked down the aisle to marry the man of her dreams, in a beautiful ceremony she and my mom had planned together. It was a celebration of more than their union….it commenced a season of sharing and joy that our family would never have known if not for the sacrifice of her loving donor. Six months after Katie and Henry tied the knot, Scott and I followed suit – now the AZW had two new sons to love. And, in what seemed like no time, both of them had finished their graduate degrees and become doctors of chemistry – both with ambitions to work for pharmaceutical companies creating drugs that would save scores of people just like the AZW. Another graduation followed down the road a bit, when Patick became her third and last child to finish college, no small thanks to the many long years of her help with Spanish homework and study skills. Around the same time that Patrick made his move into the next stage of his life, a new life began when the AZW’s first grandson, Roscoe William, joined the clan. While all of this was going on the AZW and her partner in crime, my dad, became partners in business as well, when they opened Brennan Wealth Management. My dad, as many of you know, is a fabulous financial planner, but organization is not his strong suit, and the AZW manages all of the books, makes all of the cards, cuts all of the paychecks and generally keeps everyone in line. Perpetua must have had some training in accounting, since this all requires a lot of skill and knowledge, and it is remarkable that Mov has become an expert so quickly.
A lot has happened for our family since that fateful May three years ago. Through it all we have seen a lot of changes in other families close to ours as well. There have been marriages and births, a few sad goodbyes, moves, new houses, retirements, break-ups and new loves. Each time any of us has faced a change, the AZW has been there to do what she has always done – lend strength and a shoulder when needed, or to throw up her arms in celebration when she could. We have all needed countless pep-talks, parties, phone calls, lunch dates, “fundraisers” and baby-sitting sessions, and she has been there unfailingly to give them to us. When you divide up the miraculous heartbeats that Perpetua has given her in the last three years among each of the people she has shared them with, and then further to the many people we have been able to touch with her help, we each have a precious few to be grateful for. That is the meaning of making it worth it – my mom has truly taken the gift of an anonymous stranger, and turned it into three years of giving and sharing that makes us all remember that every heartbeat counts!
