Steve comments on Mary

Usually, on this blog, you just approve comments that come in and they attach themselves to the end of the post and maybe people see them and maybe they don't.

I received this most wonderful comment on my post about Mary and I thought it was too special to be read "maybe"

What a beautiful post... My eyes filled with tears too, at the thought of your beautiful little "breathe" magnet ending up in the hands of someone who is special to you... And in the hands of someone for whom something as simple as "breathe" means so very much...

Thank you for telling us about your friend Mary, and her new lungs and liver -- and her new life -- and looking forward to seeing her without a wheelchair or oxygen, and seeing "just Mary"... It's amazing, and sometimes beyond understanding, what the gift of organ donation can do for someone. There is some family out there who suffered an incredible loss -- and in their time of grief, chose to step back for just a moment and think of others -- to think of the Mary's in the world who are dying, who they -- in the midst of their grief -- may be able to help...

And now your friend Mary is alive and thankful, and clutching a little magnet that says "breathe"... I can't wait until you get to see "just Mary" too... And I'll bet that she can't wait to see you and speak of the amazement of these little connections...

I know how Mary feels, and I know what it's like to have friends like you in our lives... Ten years ago, I was in a chair and on oxygen -- I had a double lung transplant in April 2000 (no liver...) After living almost 40 years with crappy cystic fibrosis lungs -- breathing normally is freaking mind-blowing, even after 10 years... My life was saved by a beautiful 17-year-old girl who told her family twice in the month before she passed, how strongly she felt about organ donation. I think of her throughout the day, every day...

You take care... Thanks for brightening my day with your post about Mary... And when you see her, give her a hug from a guy in Chicago who also breathes with lungs that were a gift...

Love, Steve

You never know who reads your blog or why. I don't think I know Steve and I know he is unaware that my son's "very significant other" lives with CF, too and that I have come to know about this "crappy" disease through their loving relationship.

He can't know how much his reference to 50 years meant to me.

I will surely give Mary a hug from Steve and one to my son's sweetheart, too.

Thanks, Steve.