November 2005
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no greater love
Why Suzanne donated a kidney
to a woman she had never met
By Bob Horning | Photography by Jim
Luning
 Two
women lay waiting in adjacent operating rooms in St. John Hospital
in Detroit on Dec. 4, 2002. Neither knew the other. They
had nothing in common.
One was 55 years old, the other 43.
One is white and lives in Howell, the other African-American and
lives in Southfield.
One is Roman Catholic, the other Pentecostal.
For two years, the first woman – Suzanne Fales, a parishioner
at St. Augustine in Deerfield Township – had been thinking,
praying, preparing for the moment she would donate a kidney to someone
who needed one. It felt good and right to her, and was something
she wanted to do.
The second woman, Grace Drake, had had eight rough years prior to
the surgery. “My daily life was subdued,” she said.
“I had lupus and hypertension; then my kidneys started failing.
I had a decreased appetite; my diet and fluid intake were restricted
because my kidneys couldn’t filter correctly; I couldn’t
work because I was so drained from having dialysis treatments three
times a week.”
Chris, her husband, was struggling, too. Concern for Grace’s
health was taking its toll. He was constantly wondering if someone
who was the right match would be willing to donate. He and Grace’s
brother had been tested but were not compatible donors. “It
was trying my faith,” he says. “I needed to learn to
be a supporter, an encourager, a motivator.”
Grace quoted Romans 8:28 to herself often: “For all things
work together for good for those who love God and are called according
to his purposes.” Three weeks before Christmas 2002, that
verse was fulfilled for Grace. In Howell, Suzanne was eager to go
ahead, but wanted the go-ahead from her family. Looking back, Suzanne’s
husband, Tom, says the whole thing “hit me by surprise. I
didn’t even want to talk about it.” However, Suzanne’s
unwavering attitude and a lot of reading about the transplant process
broke down his reserve and, after a year, he became a supporter.
 With
Suzanne’s mother, it just took some salesmanship to overcome
her immediate “No.”
“But, Mother, you are the one who taught me about sacrifice,”
Suzanne said to her. “And you know that if you could do it,
you would be the first one in line.” Her mother was trapped,
and after a silence, the only thing she said was, “Make sure
you drink a lot of water.”
Suzanne’s daughter, Michelle, responded immediately, “Go
for it.”
That left Catelyn, Suzanne’s granddaughter,
who was 8 at the time. For Tom and Suzanne, she had to give the
final OK. After the situation was explained to Catelyn, she agreed.
“And if my brother or mother need a kidney some day, I will
give them one of mine,” she added.
“We received her response like a message from God sent through
an angel, a selfless angel,” Suzanne said.
Throughout the preparation time, Suzanne said fear and emotion
were not the most difficult things to cope with. “It
was all the tests – the EKGs, blood tests, psychiatric work-up.
And along the way, the medical people kept giving me every opportunity
to back out, like I didn’t know what I was doing. I guess
they wanted to be certain that I was serious.”
At one point, shortly before the surgery, Suzanne did begin to fear
going under the knife. But, as she was praying in church one day,
she looked up at the crucifix and thought, “This is a no-brainer.
He died for us without a whimper.” Her excitement and commitment
returned.
During a three-hour laparoscopic surgery by Dr. Abdelkader
Hawasli, Suzanne’s kidney was removed. It was then
placed into Grace by Dr. Henry Oh, chief transplant surgeon at St.
John’s, during a slightly longer surgery. Dr. Oh said it was
major, but not dangerous. “Anyone can undergo it with minimal
discomfort,” he said.
He noted later that, “We had screened two dozen potential
donors who had the right physical match, but Suzanne seemed the
best as far as overall willingness and psychological makeup.”
He pointed out that the rigid screening and testing beforehand is
essential because there are some people who donate organs for ulterior
motives – like a lonely person looking for attention, or someone
who might do it in order to get money from the recipient afterward.
“Suzanne deserves applause for what she did – giving
the ultimate gift of life, part of her body to someone else,”
Dr. Oh said. “She carried out what the Bible teaches.”
As a result, Grace not only had a new kidney, but she and her family
would soon have a new life.
 Not
everyone is so fortunate. According to the Gift of Life
Michigan, a non-profit full-service organ and tissue recovery agency
in Ann Arbor, there are 2,075 persons in the state waiting for a
kidney transplant. Last year, 663 of them received a transplant.
One hundred fifty died while waiting. Suzanne worked for Gift of
Life as a coordination specialist until recently, and still speaks
for them at some functions.
Within a week of the operation, Suzanne was driving a car.
She was back to work in four weeks. “God has given me incredible
health all of my life,” she said, “and within six weeks
I was feeling as good as ever. When I look at all that Grace had
gone through compared to me, I consider her a hero. I am grateful
that God showed me one of the major purposes of my life –
why I am here – to donate a kidney.”
The second woman? Her life was totally transformed. Today, Grace
states that she is 100 percent better. “I have much more energy,
eat whatever I want, the hypertension is gone, the lupus in remission.
I am grateful to God, and have an increased faith in him. Her career,
not surprisingly, is taking a new path. A registered nurse, she
now intends to focus on working with kidney patients. “My
heart bleeds for them,” she says. “Though I’m
not sure exactly what yet, there is a work for me to do.”
Even her attitude has changed. “I see how precious life is,
and I have more compassion and tolerance for others.”
Fifteen days after the transplant, at Grace’s request,
she was able to meet Suzanne. Suzanne had never intended
to learn who the recipient was because it was “a personal,
private thing for me.” But her husband and others convinced
her that meeting Grace could lead to some positive publicity for
organ transplants, and be an opportunity to educate the public and
reduce fears about the procedure. This was especially true since
Grace’s transplant was the first one in Michigan by a live
donor to someone who was not a friend or relative.
The two of them hit it off immediately. Grace calls Suzanne
her angelic hero. “I love her. Her priceless, selfless act
of mercy gave me a second chance at life,” she says.
Tom Fales, who has been married to Suzanne for 25 years, says, “She
is a saint in my mind. She answered the age-old question of why
God gave us two kidneys. She is the most selfless person I have
ever met. I admire and respect her for what she did. I wish I could
be more like her.”
---
What does the church teach
about organ transplants?
 The
church recognizes the value of organ transplants as a means of saving
lives. However, it is vital that the donor’s life
is not shortened nor the functionality of her body impaired in order
to provide a transplant for another. It is important that the risks
to the donor be in proportion to the good the recipient will experience.
The donor must give full and informed consent to the procedure.
Organ donation after death is considered
meritorious and should be encouraged. It is critical that organs
not be taken from those who are in a persistent vegetative state
or who have not died. (CCC 2296)
Pope John Paul II said, “The Gospel
of life is to be celebrated above all in daily living, which should
be filled with self-giving love for others. ... Over and above such
outstanding moments, there is an everyday heroism, made up of gestures
of sharing, big or small, which build up an authentic culture of
life. A particularly praiseworthy example of such gestures is the
donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable manner,
with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself
to the sick who sometimes have no other hope.” (Evangelium
Vitae, no. 86)
Could we save
our marriage?
A personal experience of Retrouvaille
By Marybeth Hicks | Photography by Tom Gennara
 The
couple facing us talks tearfully about their once-failed marriage,
now vibrant beyond their wildest dreams. My husband, Eric,
and I listen in silence with nearly 50 other couples in the room.
We’re all awkwardly longing for our own happy ending, but
fear we can never achieve it with the partner who let our marriage
whither away.
The Retrouvaille (pronounced “retro- vie”) weekend has
begun. While we don’t know it, seeds of hope are lying dormant
in the broken hearts and hurting souls around us – within
us.
A spiritually-based program for healing troubled marriages, Retrouvaille
was developed in 1977 at a Catholic parish in Quebec, Canada and
has spread all over the world. The term Retrouvaille is
French for “to find again or rediscover.” Thousands
of couples have used the process to rediscover and strengthen their
marriages after years of neglect, infidelity and even divorce.
After our own years of quiet desperation and emotional distancing,
Eric and I are here at the retreat center seeking to rediscover
the joy and connection we once felt in our marriage. The
air conditioning spews chilled air under fluorescent lights, and
icy silence dominates the room. The host couple asks us to remove
watches and resist the temptation to call home to check on kids.
“This weekend is for working on your marriage,” they
explain. They say they will guide us through the process as it unfolds,
so we won’t need schedules or agendas. Still silent, we all
face forward, stiffly listening and writing as directed, emotions
carefully in check.
Friday evening, later
After a session designed to focus on our own lives and feelings,
the host couple introduces a process called Dialogue – a
combination of letter-writing about personal feelings on an incident
or topic and discussion about those feelings as a couple. In our
letters, we must rank the intensity of our feelings, assign our
emotions a color, or describe some element of nature that illustrates
our feelings. This yields vivid and clear imagery, easily understood
and shared, which helps us more fully understand each other as partners.
After modeling Dialogue, the host couple invites everyone to try
the process. They assign the first of the weekend’s many questions
and send us to separate places to write. When our writing time expires,
we head off to share our letters and listen respectfully to each
other.
Eric and I exchange letters and discuss their meanings until we
are both confident we have been heard and understood. Soon we fall
into an easy slumber side by side.
Saturday morning
Saturday morning dawns early. As Eric and I walk into the dining
room, a more relaxed atmosphere greets us. Most couples still refuse
to make eye or physical contact with each other, however, and a
few look as if they waged full-blown battles through the night.
I feel secure enough to trust the process and allow myself to float
along without an agenda or expected outcome. Something inside me
has loosened up and made room for growth.
We spend the morning listening and in Dialogue. The host couple’s
honesty and the Dialogue questions have helped me open up and constructively
express the anger and disappointment that has been brewing for years.
Eric listens, asks questions and talks about my writings until he
clearly understands what I’m trying to say. Then I take my
turn reading his letter, once for my head and a second time with
my heart, as directed. Like me, he has revealed resentments and
longings that have lain buried too long. By lunch we feel something
taking root inside us, something that feels like hope.
 Saturday,
afternoon
and evening
Maybe it’s my imagination, but the dining room seems
warmer for the lunch meal. Even if they aren’t talking
to each other, many couples are at least chatting with strangers
seated at their table. Smiles appear on faces more easily, some
emanating from the eyes.
Except for an hour dinner break, we work as couples the rest of
the day, wrestling with various issues and revelations until 11
p.m. The host couples use such poetic language in expressing themselves
and their feelings. I enjoy listening to their vivid and richly
textured imagery.
I also relish the poetry and honesty that flows through my pen from
the deepest recesses of my heart, enabling Eric to really share
my experience and feel my emotions. I put extra effort into finding
the perfect image or color to illustrate my feelings and help Eric
understand my thoughts. As I tend to this effort, I can feel hope
growing inside me, gaining strength and height – like the
rose bush on the side of our house that emerges from the frozen
ground each spring and climbs the trellis outside my kitchen window.
By the time Eric returns to our room, I greet him warmly. Though
its 11:00 p.m., I’m looking forward to talking with him about
his letter and sharing mine with him. We talk late into the night.
Sunday, morning
Sunday breakfast features many smiling couples talking together
at their tables. I find myself looking across the room
to guess who maintained their distance through the night, and who
came together. Many faces seem to glow as if something in their
relationships had blossomed in the night.
For some, however, the icy walls stand firm. As the women are dismissed
from the conference room to write the longest Dialogue, many individuals
remain visibly angry and distant. Alone in my room, as I write and
reflect on the question, tears stream down my face for the first
time all weekend.
Sunday, afternoon
At lunch, I wonder at the other tear-streaked faces and
red eyes and noses around me. Those tears seem to have
washed away many of the ice walls. Couples are openly touching,
talking and smiling – sometimes for the first time all weekend.
In the closing session, the presenters invite anyone to share thoughts
or feelings about their Retrouvaille experience. One woman speaks
up immediately. “I feel we’ve turned a corner,”
she says. “I can put the past in the past, and leave it there
to stay.”
Another woman explained that she and her husband had only been married
one year. “We’re both on our second marriages
and I feel as if I lost my husband in this past year.” She
paused, “This weekend here with you, I have found him again.”
Immediately a man spoke up. “The only reason I came here was
to satisfy my daughter-in-law.” Motioning to his wife he continued,
“We’ve been separated for six months, after 35 years
of marriage. This weekend has been galactic as far as reconnecting
myself and my wife. I plan to live to 100, and even though my first
60 years have been mostly unhappy, I want the next 40 to be happy.”
The following week
Looking back over our Retrouvaille weekend, I don’t
understand how it happened, but healing really did blossom in our
marriage over the course of those three days. Some claim
it’s the work of the Holy Spirit, it may be Love. I don’t
honestly know. I do know some powerful force worked on us and other
couples who had once recoiled from one another. Something enabled
them to reach out to touch their partner’s face and smile
into each other’s eyes. Like a rose, by any name, it is sweet.
Though Eric and I will face challenges as we rebuild our lives together,
we are profoundly grateful the once-dormant seed of hope has flowered
within our
marriage.
---
 
Retrouvaille provides help for married couples living with the pain
of a troubled marriage. It welcomes married couples from
all faiths, and operates from the following three core principles.
• Marriages deserve an opportunity to succeed.
• God’s presence can make a difference.
• Reconciled marriage is preferable to divorce.
The program begins with a weekend retreat guided by a priest-facilitator
and host couples who have grown through serious conflict in their
marriage. After the weekend, couples attend a series of 12 support
sessions to work through concepts on the importance of listening
and intimacy.
For more information, visit the Retrouvaille International web site
at www.retrouvaille.org, or call your local Catholic diocese for
information on the Retrouvaille program near you.
if you could wish
for anything...
Amy Grant’s new show
grants wishes
By Elizabeth Solsburg
 If
you could have any wish at all, what would it be? For the
Castleberry family, it was reconstructive surgery for their daughter,
Abby, who had been severely injured in a car accident. For the Sonora,
Calif. cheerleaders, it was a new and safer football field for their
team. For 13-year-old Bobby, it was a chance to be adopted by his
stepfather.
For all of them, NBC’s new series, Three Wishes, starring
Amy Grant, was the answer to a prayer. Amy and her crew came into
Sonora and made wishes come true. FAITH talked with Amy recently
about the show, which airs on Fridays at 9 p.m.
Amy believes Three Wishes is a teaching tool. “We
live in an age where people are not connecting the way they used
to. They are not meeting each other’s needs the way they used
to.” Making dreams come true publicly is about setting an
example. “My hope when I first went to NBC was that people
see this show and feel inspired to reinvest. Things happen in the
town that don’t make it to the TV show... the atmosphere in
the town becomes so giving. It happens with the crew, the people
in the town ... people are compelled to be involved on some level.”
For Amy, the goal is that everyone can make a difference in their
own communities, even if the television cameras are not rolling.
She says, “You cannot believe the ripple effect.”
When she was in Clovis, N.M., standing in front of the “wish
tent,” more than a thousand people were lined up to ask her
or one of the other hosts for their heart’s desire. “It
took hours to get through that line. One woman finally got to me
and I said, ‘Tell me what your wish is today.’ She paused
and got quiet for a minute and then said, ‘My wish is that
the wish would come true for the woman who was standing in line
in front of me.’”
 Amy’s
television appearances have generally revolved around her music.
As a hit Christian recording artist who made a successful crossover
into the pop genre, she is regularly featured on Christmas specials
and concerts. But she got involved with NBC just for this project
– “I was in the middle of the Steven Covey book, The
Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, and I had just gotten
to the part where it said how important it is to have a life plan
and to take a while designing it.”
Amy’s life plan is based on her faith. “Most days I
wake up and I’m fairly optimistic. ... There are so many things
in life that have built my faith. It’s everything. It’s
every day that I wake up feeling kind of useless and something happens
before the day is up that is necessary and meaningful for me and
somebody else.
“I called my mother and said, ‘Mom, I have never in
my life felt so equipped for a job ever [as being the host of this
show].’ I feel as if every day that I have spent with a Make-a-Wish
child, every time I’ve taken my guitar into the lobby of St.
Jude, every Habitat for Humanity build that I’ve done, every
green room that happens before and after a concert, people have
decided to tell me their life stories and share very intimate details;
... because of the kind of music I’ve written, from the time
I was 17 years old, people have felt comfortable opening up their
lives to me. Three Wishes is meeting needs and when needs are met,
the walls come down between people. When needs are met, people allow
themselves to be vulnerable. Things are happening that are important
and necessary.
These conversations are as familiar to me as getting up in the morning
and going to bed at night. I am so glad Andrew and Jason [the producers]
called me. I do think, in some very natural way and some very spiritual
way, this thing was orchestrated in just the way it was supposed
to happen.”
During this interview, Abby Castleberry had just gone into surgery
for her second reconstructive operation. Amy had gotten
up early to ask her own family to pray. NBC is still footing the
bills for Abby’s surgeries and for the therapies and rehabilitations
in other stories for Abby. Even if there is no viewership, those
changes are very real, says Amy.
“There are no fingers crossed behind anybody’s back
and there’s no other foot ready to fall. This show is exactly
what it is. It’s an amazing use of network dollars to do amazing
philanthropic things in people’s lives.
“It’s not about how much cash you leave in a town. Do
you do something that affects a person or a group of people in a
way that the effects are long-lasting?”
Harry Butler lost everything
find out how he’s faring in Lansing
By Marybeth Hicks | Photography by Tom Gennara
 At
51 years of age, Harry Butler was well settled. A single
father of one son, Kendall, age 11, Harry was a plastics fabricator
who owned a comfortable home, drove a car he says was “immaculate,”
and enjoyed a full and busy life in the city where he was born and
raised.
But that city was New Orleans, and now, Harry and Kendall live in
a place they never dreamed they would visit, much less settle –
Lansing, Mich. Thanks to St. Vincent Catholic Charities, Harry and
Kendall are piecing together a life that feels temporary, but in
fact has been forever changed.
The journey from the Big Easy to Michigan’s capital
city was harrowing and heartbreaking. When Hurricane Katrina
threatened offshore winds of more than 150 miles per hour, Harry
assessed his risks but decided to stay in his home to oversee and
protect his property. “I had ridden out storms before,”
Harry says.
“We had had so many false alarms in the past,” Harry
explains. “The storms always took a last minute turn one way
or another. I just thought this was another case where it would
miss us.”
While people poured out of the city or moved from their homes to
the Superdome and the Convention Center, Harry and Kendall stayed
put for three difficult days. “When the water in my house
finally reached the box springs on my bed, we decided to get out,”
he says. Behind his house, they climbed atop a levee and walked
it for two miles to the home of a friend.
This house was vacant since the friend had earlier fled to Mississippi.
It was also dry since it sits on higher ground. They stayed for
seven days, stranded on a pocket of dry land surrounded by the stench
and sorrow of a city torn apart.
Naturally, they had no electricity, no running water, and little
food. The Red Cross dropped meal packets and bottled water on some
nearby railroad tracks, where Harry and others fought each other
for the minimal rations that would keep them alive.
At night, Harry covered Kendall in mosquito repellent and set him
up to sleep on the front porch, where the stifling heat was slightly
more bearable. “I stayed up all night playing security guard,
watching my son sleep,” Harry says. “It was too dangerous
with all kinds of people running around out of control.”
In fact, Harry says the infamous looters were everywhere, creating
a sense of danger and insecurity among those who tried to stay in
New Orleans and survive.
Harry and Kendall stayed put for seven days. When
they had arrived at this home, they believed help would be imminent.
But as the days wore on, they began to realize that the city was
paralyzed by devastation. “We had no idea what really happened
during the storm or in the days that followed,” he says. Depression
set in.
One day during this time, Harry decided to walk the two miles back
to his neighborhood to check on his home. By now, the flood waters
reached the roof of his house, while his precious car sat submerged
in the driveway. “My son had asked me to check on his pet
geckos. I had to go back and tell him they were gone,” Harry
says. “That was the hardest thing. That’s when we knew
we had lost everything.”
 By
the seventh day, Harry says they had waited long enough.
A passing fire truck took them out of the neighborhood and carried
them to the New Orleans Convention Center, by now emptied of the
thousands of evacuees who had taken refuge there during the storm.
“When we saw how disgusting it was there, we realized we were
better off staying where we were. They took us right out of there
and got us to the airport, so we never had to endure those conditions
with thousands of people.”
A helicopter ferried them to Louis Armstrong International Airport,
where a plane awaited to take them to an unknown destination. “At
first we were told we were going to Chicago,” Harry says,
“but when we landed in Chicago, the captain came on and said
we were going to Battle Creek, Michigan.” With no idea of
where or how this journey would end, Harry and Kendall buckled their
seat belts for another takeoff.
In Battle Creek, they received a hero’s welcome.
“It was like we were on a football team and we won the Super
Bowl,” he says. “I never knew there were so many loving,
caring people in the world.”
Harry calls his arrival in Michigan “the best time
of my life. The place is like Mayberry, the town on the
Andy Griffith Show.” After the chance to shower and eat, Harry
and Kendall were taken to the Fort Custer army base, where they
stayed until being resettled in Lansing.
St. Vincent Catholic Charities took in nearly 100 Louisiana evacuees
like Harry and Kendall, providing them with fully-furnished apartments
and the support they needed to enroll their children in schools,
find work and receive medical attention and social services.
Harry sits in his two-bedroom apartment, recalling his arrival in
their new home, where the kitchen was already stocked with food
and the beds made up for them, evidence of the care and comfort
offered by his three sponsors. He talks about what it will be like
in the winter. He wonders if they’ll stay beyond the six months
of support he will receive from Catholic Charities.
“New Orleans is my home,” Harry says. “They’ll
rebuild it and we’ll go back.” His hope is grounded
in a lifelong faith that has never failed him, not even in the face
of Katrina.
In the meantime, Harry believes God has a purpose for bringing him
to Lansing. Smiling and slowly shaking his head, he says, “We’ll
just have to see what happens next.”
---
What is the Diocese of Lansing
doing to help?
As we went to press, the parishes of the Diocese of Lansing had
raised more than $435,000 for Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA), which
is organizing relief to hurricane victims. CCUSA provides long-term
resettlement help, including job placement, permanent housing, medical
and drug assistance.
• St. Vincent Catholic Charities has resettled
111 evacuees into approximately 60 housing units. Read Harry Butler’s
story to learn more about how St. Vincent helped hurricane victims.
• Catholic Charities of Jackson has provided
resettlement assistance to evacuees who were uncounted by FEMA.
• Catholic Charities of Flint offers foster
care, counseling, bilingual services, personal hygiene items and
food.
• Cristo Rey Community Center offers Spanish
language interpretation, job training, counseling, food and medical
help.
• Livingston County Catholic Charities offers
counseling and critical-incident stress debriefing.
• Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw offers
storage, counseling, adoption help, Habitat for Humanity and household
goods.
• St. Mary Student Parish partnered with
the University of Michigan to “adopt” a student.
• St. Jude Parish in DeWitt sent five truckloads
of relief items to St. Vincent Catholic Charities.
• St. Robert Bellarmine Parish in Flint is
waiving tuition for some resettled students.
• Holy Family Parish in Grand Blanc was already
partnered with the Alexandria Parish in Louisiana and will be hosting
a drive in December. Their schoolchildren have raised $5,000.
• St. Michael Byzantine Church is working
with other aid organizations.
• All the parishes in the diocese have taken up a special
collection, and are conducting drives to raise money or aid.
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