Living (and Leaving) a Legacy

It's been a couple of weeks since I first came to you with the story of my friend Michelle, but I realized I never told you the full story of what happened during her last few days on earth, so I wanted to take the time to do that today. Today is actually her funeral, several hundred miles away from here. Since I can't go, I wanted to honor her here by sharing her legacy with you. (I'm borrowing her own words, as well as the words of her husband, since I can't state it better than they did.)

This is one of her husband's first posts about Michelle after everything started:

"You opened your eyes." I wrote this last Thursday but I thought on Wednesday it would never happen. On Wednesday I was a mess. The love of my life was struggling to survive on Valentine's Day. I remember the day like flashes. Your eyes rolled back in your head, CPR, the blare of the Code Alarm through the PA, once twice three times that day, each time blasting your floor, your unit, you. I remember Dr. Davis looking at me and saying "Brother, if I don't do this right now, she dies tonight." Do what?

ECMO.

I'd never heard of it. Was it life support? Open heart surgery? Dangerous? Necessary?

All of the above. God had you in his hands. You coded three times that day. They transported you to Charlotte with an open chest on life support.. your heart was exposed except for some kind of surgical saran-wrap keeping the germs out. All these people reading this, all these people praying, the whole wide world from South Korea to China to Canada to Africa to Albania to Greentown, IN and Six Mile, SC were praying to keep you safe. God heard those prayers. God answered those prayers. You are alive and I am more thankful than ever to have you here with me. I told you the other day that I feel like I have lived a lifetime with you in this room. I don't know how to repay the kindness everyone has shown us through this time, but I've always been a great storyteller and I can tell a story today and hopefully pay it forward.

Four people drove down from Charlotte that night to get my wife. Their names are Kelly, Kellen, Shellie, and Nicole. Their shift ended at 7 pm. They did not go home to their husbands, boyfriends, wives, children, cats or dogs until 1:30am. They needed two transport techs and two ECMO techs...the transport team was understaffed so two ECMO specialists who were certified to transport volunteered and two more ECMO specialists went as your ECMO techs. If they hadn't volunteered you would have not transported until much later that night. You may not have made it that long because you needed extra support when you got to Charlotte. Greenville put in two cannulas, one to take out and one to put back in. Charlotte put in a third to remove even more pressure.

God used and has continued to use our ECMO team to help us through this. I cannot repay them. The joke I have when they come to sit beside for 12 hours without the option to leave is "Are you a Christian yet?" your faith through this trial has been a constant light in this ICU. God is working through us and through this team to bless us.

We have been blessed through this time. As difficult as it is, your love and trust in God has been and continues to be beautiful. I don't know how to pay back all the love and the gifts that have allowed me to stay here with you. I don't know what to do. The ECMO team, Christian or not, has been God's hands and feet to us during this time. They have bought your breakfast from Panera, sat up chitchatting with you until 2 am to take your mind off your shivering, brought you a sewing kit with blunt plastic needles since you're on blood thinners, brought you Moe's (ECMoe's) and did your hair and been friends more than nurses.

Today we pay it forward. Go Donate a unit of Plasma, a unit of platelets, or a unit of packed red cells this weekend. Michelle has used several units of these almost each day this week. Four weeks ago Charlotte ran out of platelets. They had to pick and choose who got them. It will take two hours. I can't give my heart away, but I can do this.

Donate whole blood (30 minutes), packed red cells, platelets, or plasma (2 hours). Make sure you're an organ donor.

Be the change.

God's got this. We are just his witnesses. Comment if you donate or change your donor status. My wife's illness has had a ripple effect of God's grace and goodness in this world. We don't have to wait until Heaven to live in God's Kingdom. God is making the world better through his kingdom right now, right here. Be his kingdom and make the world a better place. 

After Michelle died, Kevin posted these words:

For a long time I thought the miracle was her healing. Looking back, I think she died on Valentine's Day and the miracle was those seven days she was awake on ECMO. She was loving and caring and my everything. She saw the girls, she steady preached until her last words, and she loved me like I've never known another to love me. Unconditionally. I've made so many mistakes in my life. She remained the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to me. I don't know how to go forward without her.

Michelle had Viral Cardio Myopathy, not Post Partum. Some virus inflamed her heart and made her so very sick. She got a transplant and things were going ok, but she kept having problems with blood clots. The doctors think that maybe her body reacted to the blood thinners in a negative way, creating clots and thinning her blood at the same time. They said it's very rare but possible.

A blood clot entered her brain and caused her to have a stroke. By the time we caught it, it was too late. She died of an ischemic stroke, but she's not dead. Her last words to me were this:

"I'm good either way. I go to Jesus today, or home to you and the girls."

I'm not good this way, but I want to honor her. I want everyone to know that God did not disappoint us. God gave us seven days to say goodbye. If you'll remember, I told her that I felt like I lived a lifetime with her in that hospital room. I could have lived a thousand lifetimes with her.

The world is a sadder place today. But Michelle wanted me to tell you that the kingdom of heaven has come near. And if you want to see her again, to experience her love and her smile, to hear her sing a lullaby and wrap her arms around you in a hug, join that Kingdom.

I love you babe. I'll see you soon.

-Kevin

I also found some of Michelle's own final posts, which show the legacy she lived and has left: 

Guess what! You can have your heart made new today and it doesn't have to start with a 5 am meeting with a transplant team. Let God carry and transform your heavy heart today. We weren't made strong enough to carry ourselves.

How can I be on life support in heart failure waiting on a match when I finally have realized how to truly love? My husband, daughters, parents, family and friends are all the best. Still hoping and trusting God to create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me.

Love my God, husband, children, parents, sisters, family, church, friends...and can't wait to do it with my new heart if that is the Lord's will.

***

I leave you today with these photos. I know Michelle the best from being part of the Marion Easter Pageant with her. (It was a play about Holy Week that both of us were part of throughout our entire childhoods.) This photo is, as far as I know, the last one have of both of us in that role. It was taken almost exactly eighteen years ago, which would have made Michelle about 13 years old. (She's in the pink. I'm in the brown.)

And here she was just a few weeks ago with her beautiful family:

Michelle, you lived a lot of life in 31 years. You have left a beautiful legacy. I am grateful to have known you.