AN ACT OF GRACE

AN ACT OF GRACE
By Mary Elizabeth Rhudy

    My son could die. My son whom I had played baseball with and whom I had taught to drive. My son who everyone said was my mini-me. My son who was ten times the man I could ever have hope to be. I looked at the clock on the wall of the surgery lobby. 6:42. God, they had been in there for seven hours, already. I kept trying to pray, to block out the images from eight hours, ago. They kept slamming back into my brain.
    John had taken the car to get it cleaned and detailed to get ready for the rehearsal dinner for tonight. I was supposed to be getting remarried, tomorrow. He had stopped long enough to fill up the tank and was pulling out of the gas station when a drunk driver plowed into the passenger side of the car. The man who hit him has only minor injuries. My son suffered a ruptured spleen and damage to his kidney and lost what looked like gallons of blood. He only had one kidney to start out with. He was going to have to have a transplant or he would die. And this is when my whole life was turned totally upside down, forever.
    I don't have the same blood type as he does. Neither his mother or I do. John's mother was supposed to have been one of a set of twins, but the other one didn't develop, and her genetic material isn't what ended up in John. John and I are both AB, but he is negative and I am positive. He has no siblings and no genetic link to his mother, even though she gave birth to him. So they had to put out an all-call for a kidney that was an exact match for him.
    They got the call from the state prison in the next county that they had a man who was on death row and was wanting to donate his organs to science after his execution. All the testing had been done in preparation for his date which was three days away. He was a perfect match. In fact, if they didn't know any better, they would have sworn the two were related. They rushed this inmate over to the hospital to prepare for the transplant operation.
    I hadn't been anywhere near the rooms that that man had been taken to when he was brought in, so I didn't see him at that time. His doctor came out with my son's doctor to talk to me, and when he saw me, his jaw hit the floor like a cinderblock. He just stood there, transfixed, unable to move or speak for what seemed like an eternity. He turned to my son's doctor and asked if I knew who was donating the kidney.
    "I haven't been told anything. Is there a problem?" I was beginning to panic thinking that maybe the guy had changed his mind at the last minute. Maybe there had been a stay of execution or something. I hated to think of someone else having to die so that my son could live. But if I had to choose the life of someone who has been condemned to die, already, over the life of my son who has his whole life still ahead of him, well, the choice was clear.
    "No," said my son's surgeon.  "We wanted to protect both parties concerned, so we haven't said anything to anyone."
    The other doctor locked his eyes on me as if he was searching through my brain for anything on my part that would keep this operation from continuing. I guess he was okay with what he found, because he escorted both of us into the donor's room.
    I took a look at the man on the bed and almost fainted. I was looking at myself. We were identical down to the mirror-imaged birthmarks on the sides of our necks - mine on the left and his on the right - shaped like a little kidney bean. The doctors looked at each other and then at me. They said that they needed to proceed, now, with the surgery, but afterward, we would have to talk.
    That had been seven hours, ago. I heard movement behind the doors leading to surgery, and then the doctors came out. "Mr. Baldwin, when were you born?"
    "7 September 1956. I was born in Virginia Beach at 7:45 in the morning. Why?"
    "Do you have any siblings?" said the other surgeon.
    "My father told me that I had a twin brother but that he died at birth. He said our mother ran off not too long after that." I began to feel a wave of memories passing over me of pictures that I had seen once but had then disappeared from the family albums. I used to think that I had imagined seeing them, but had I? They were pictures with two babies held by our mother or father or both parents. Had our mother taken my brother when she ran off?
    "Mr. Baldwin, the gentleman - he goes by the name of Andrew Stone -  who donated his kidney was born on 7 September 1956 in Virginia Beach. His birth certificate shows that he was born at 7:52 am. Sir, I believe we have found your brother. I spoke to him before we knocked him out, and he has said he wants to meet you, after all. Is that okay with you?"
    Dear God. This man was my brother. Every kid has an "imaginary friend" they play with when they are lonely or bored. My "imaginary friend" had looked just like me. I use to wonder why I felt as if part of me had been torn away. This man who was on death row was my brother. I knew it. "What did he do to get the death penalty?"
    "He raped and murdered a fourteen-year old girl," said the other surgeon. "She was the daughter of neighbors of his. He has admitted what he did, and he has written a letter to the parents of the girl and has expressed remorse and asked forgiveness. He says he is ready to die for what he did. Do you want to meet him?"
    A rapist and a murderer. A murderer of a fourteen-year old girl. I had grown up to be a math teacher and volunteer fireman. My brother had murdered a child. And, yet, this man, this rapist, my brother, had just saved my son's life. I walked with the other surgeon into his room. I walked to the bed. My brain went numb as I tried to think of the right words to say to the brother I had found and would lose in a matter of hours. He was just beginning to come around. I took his hand.
      "Andrew, thank you. Thank you for giving me back my son."