Quite by accident

By chance, liver recipient connects with grieving mother who fulfilled her daughter's wish to be an organ donor.

By James B. Meadow, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Friday, July 11, 2008

Jill Connett

Brian Lehmann / The Rocky

Carole Pirri, right, received a liver from the daughter of Melody Connett, left. After years of wondering, on both of their parts, the women connected a year ago and have become fast friends, each sharing a love for Connett's daughter, Jill, who was killed in a car crash.

What do you do when your best friend, your only child, the baby who came from inside you and grew into the woman with the Julia Roberts smile is killed in an accident and even the gaping hole in your heart isn't deep enough to store all your tears?

What do you do when you wake up in a hospital and they tell you that you're no longer dying? That you will be able to feel sunlight on your face and hug your loved ones?

What do you do when you're aware that your salvation was a young woman you never knew and never will know, a woman who died and left behind a piece of herself to keep you alive?

What do you do when you're Melody Connett and you desperately want to reach out to the stranger your daughter saved? Just talk to her, just huddle with the hope that your Jill lives a little bit through her. What do you do when that stranger won't acknowledge your letters?

What do you do when you're Carole Pirri and every time you try to write back to the mother of the girl who saved your life you start to sob and put down your pen because you feel so horribly guilty? Because you know that girl was so young and you're pushing 58 and, oh God, how will her poor mother feel about that? How will she feel if she finds out that your daughter, your best friend, is still alive?

For five years, the intense trauma of a life stolen and the intense gift of a life saved were the themes that connected and separated two women. Then, one day Â? July 15, 2007 Â? luck and fate combined to toss them into each other's lives and create a bond that goes beyond friendship.

And this is how it happened.

A best friend's farewell

It was about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 24, 2003. Jill called Melody to say she and her boyrfriend were going out to eat. No big deal.

It was the last time Melody would talk to her daughter.

Melody was mowing the grass when the policeman came up. There'd been an accident.

No big deal, she thought. Jill's been in a fender bender.

Swedish Hospital. No one could talk to her except a doctor. A "bad feeling" was starting to percolate. The doctor arrived. Melody heard phrases like "no brain function," and "nonsurvivable injuries."

What? How?

A left turn. A pickup coming. A crash. One person hurt seriously.

Melody's ex, Jim, Jill's father, arrived at Swedish. They agonized together. Should they keep their 24-year-old daughter on life support? Melody said no.

After that decision, the next one was easy: They respected Jill's wishes. She had wanted to be an organ donor.

But how could this be happening? Jill was Melody's "best buddy." Jim, a truck driver, was on the road lot. Mother and child spent a lot of time growing close.

Jill had a killer smile - everybody said it reminded them of actress Julia Roberts. Jill was a crackerjack cheerleader at Columbine High School. She graduated two years before the tragedy and Melody was always so grateful for that. Jill went to the University of Northern Colorado. She became an elementary school teacher in Denver; she had always loved children. Jill was kind. Jill was petite. Jill was pretty. Jill was sunshine.

Melody said goodbye to her best friend at noon on Sunday. They made her leave the room when they shut off the ventilator.

That night the hospital called. The only organ of Jill's that could be used was her liver. It had gone to a 58-year-old woman. The woman was doing well.

It was odd, but Melody felt calmer. That something good was salvaged from something so bad was a dim candle in all the darkness.

An unfinished chapter

Melody followed the rules.

Six months after the accident, she tried to contact the recipient through Donor Alliance. She wrote the stranger, telling her about Jill, grief and love spilling onto every sentence. She sent the letter with a photo of Jill.

Melody didn't know what she wanted to hear. Maybe only that the woman was OK. She worried that the woman had been an alcoholic - isn't that why most livers go bad? Maybe Jill's liver had been donated in vain.

Whatever she wanted to hear, this is what she heard: nothing.

Donor Alliance was surprised, but there was nothing it could do. Rules are rules. Recipients have the right to privacy.

Even though the woman's silence began to feel like an "unfinished chapter" in Melody's life, she tried not to think about it.

The years went by. Melody fought to keep Jill's memory alive. She organized groups for the Donor Dash fundraiser. She printed blue T-shirts with turtles on them. Jill had once left her a note, drawing a turtle and quoting her college sorority mottto: "It's good to be a turtle - you stick your neck out for a friend."

Ten people ran in 2005. In 2006, it was 16. For the 2007 run, Melody had 33 blue T-shirts ready.

Two shirts too few.

The edge of surrender

For just about all of her life, Carole Pirri had been healthy. Never got colds. Never got the flu. So she wasn't worried when a blood test from a routine physical indicated her liver was a "little bit fatty."

A year later, she started vomiting blood. She was bleeding internally. The doctors didn't know why. Keep an eye on it, they told her. But don't worry.

So she didn't.

Then she bled again. More biopsies. No answers.

After the third time, her doctor sent her to University Hospital in Denver. Some 14 vials of blood later, they said her liver was "dying." They didn't know why.

Carole didn't either. Didn't you have to abuse your body to get cirrhosis? Didn't you have to be an alcoholic? Gee, she'd barely had 20 drinks in her whole life.

They put her on the waiting list for a transplant. There were 130 people ahead of her, but that was OK. She still felt pretty good.

She and Norbert were in love. They had two great kids, Chris and Kim. They had a nice life in Colorado Springs, Norbert's last post after a career in the Air Force. Things would work out.

But things got worse. Toxins unprocessed by her liver stormed through her blood. She would become disoriented; she almost stepped through a second- story window thinking it was a door.

Feb. 28, 2002. The hospital called. A liver was available. Carole and Norbert drove up. False alarm. The liver was too fatty.

Jan. 12, 2003. Another hospital call. Another false alarm.

Carole was drifting toward surrender. She was "giving up." She 'just wanted it to be over with."

When the call came on May 25, she didn't even bother to pack a bag. She should have.

Carole woke up after 61/2 hours of surgery and thought, "I feel pretty good."

Soon she felt better than that. In February, they went on a cruise.

Everything was going great except one thing.

Four times she tried to write the woman whose daughter had saved her life. Four times, overcome by a "lack of courage," by tears and guilt, she quit.

If she couldn't find the courage to contact Melody, at least Carole could find a way to honor Jill. For the first time, she opened the envelope with the girl's photo. She copied the photo onto two white T-shirts. Under the photo, was printed "My Donor / My Angel."

Of fate and turtles

Carole and Kim were walking at last year's Donor Dash when a woman came up and said, "Did Mel run out of blue shirts?"

Carole explained she didn't know who Mel was, but the photo was the girl who had saved her life. Once her shock wore off, the woman asked Carole, "Do you want to meet her mother?"

When she reached the finish line, Carole saw 33 people in blue T-shirts. Before she knew it, one of them was hugging her.

You could have paved one of the lakes in Washington Park with the tears everyone was crying.

That day, Carole and Kim went to Melody's house. They saw photos of Jill. They learned about her life. They learned that Jill had been born on Carole's 10th wedding anniversary, that "she could have been my third child." They visited the scene of the accident. Not so slowly, they became blended into Melody's life. The way she would blend into theirs.

"Mel is an amazing woman. She's a sister to me," says Carole. "I hope she feels the same."

Melody and Carole chat on the phone once a month. They speak at functions to raise awareness of organ donation. Sunday, a year after they met, they will speak at the Donor Dash.

And when they do, they will wear blue T-shirts. They will be there to share their tears and pain and joy. They will be there to keep alive the spirit and memory of the girl with the Julia Roberts smile. They will be there because it's good to be a turtle.

meadowj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2606

Organ donation statistics

100 lives can be saved by one organ and tissue donor.

18 people in the U.S. die each day waiting for an organ transplant.

100,000 people are waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant in the U.S.

* In Colorado, nearly 1,800 people are on waiting lists for lifesaving transplants. In 2007, nearly 400 people in Colorado received an organ transplant.

To become an organ/tissue donor

* Register at: ColoradoDonorRegistry.org or call 888-256-4386.

You also can register when obtaining or renewing your Colorado driver's license.

Ninth annual Donor Dash

* What: A fundraising event for Donor Alliance

* When: 8 to 10:30 a.m., Sunday

* Where: Washington Park

* For information, go to: donoralliance.org/donordash

• July 12, 2008

  9:23 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Meggie writes:

  What a wonderful story. I am a organ donor. I think its a kind thing to do. If you must die......give life.