SUGAR HOUSE — Rain dampened parts of the Salt Lake Valley Saturday morning. Then the sun split through the clouds. The sky turned mostly blue, and by the time a crowd of about 150 people gathered on the north side of Sugarhouse Park, the sun was shining brightly.
The weather seemed to match the faces of those who gathered to share their feelings about organ and tissue donation. There were tears but also many smiles at the event, which capped National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week.
Such activities are held to emphasize the importance of organ and tissue donation, organizers said. Nationally, more than 69,000 people are awaiting an organ transplant.
Locally, 250 people are listed with four transplant centers in Salt Lake City, said Lynette Phillips of the Intermountain Organ Recovery System.
Sponsored by the agency, the Saturday gathering, which included the planting of an evergreen "Tree of Life," was held to give families of organ and tissue donors and recipients of the "gifts of life" a chance to share their feelings. Children and others in the group placed decorated ornaments on the tree. Most of the decorations were made in memory of a loved one who had died and donated organs and/or tissue.
"We know of at least six people who were able to live because of the gifts my first husband, Paul, was able to share after his death," Kim Rudd Kinzer, a young Salt Lake mother, told those assembled after she walked with her children, twins James and Rachael Rudd, 7, to a microphone at the north end of the park.
Kinzer recalled the sudden death in March 1998 of her husband at age 30 in California where they were living. He was attending medical school and in apparent good health.
"He died really suddenly of a brain hemorrhage," she said. "And when they came and asked if we wanted to donate his organs, I knew the answer in a heartbeat. He had worked in a hospital for seven years and always marveled at the way people's organs were transplanted to give others life."
Because of questions from others about whether it was the right thing to do and also to double check on her husband's own intentions, Kinzer said she sent for her husband's wallet at home and found that he had filled out not one but two organ donor cards.
The cards, which fell out of his wallet, were "completely filled out and signed by himself and witnesses, saying that he wanted to be an organ donor and donate everything that he possibly could," said Kinzer, who has since remarried Todd Kinzer and is expecting a child in July.
The gathering, conducted by Robin Welde, a social worker with the organ procurement organization, also included expressions of love and appreciation from others, including Paula Coronado, Idaho Falls, whose son Jeramie Michael Mitchell, 21, died a year ago in February at a Salt Lake hospital while awaiting a donated liver. Coronado stressed that many people die waiting for a donor.
"I want people to know that it is a tragedy when someone dies, but it is more of a tragedy when they don't donate," Coronado said.
The majority of the speakers Saturday were family members of donors, but a number of people, including Jason Ivers and Judy Blain, both of Salt Lake City, are recipients of organs or tissues.
Ivers received a heart transplant 10 years ago.
Blain said she can relate to both the families of organ and tissue donors and those who receive such gifts. While she is the recipient of cornea transplants, her son, Darren Byrd, also was an organ and tissue donor after his death in a 1985 automobile accident.
"I have a number of perspectives on organ and tissue donation. I carry a donor card and am willing to give of myself should the need arise. I am a donor mom and a recipient. This gift of love that gives me sight is so important because I use my eyes to lip read because I am hearing impaired. And through my eyes I am able to understand what others are communicating," Blain said. A social worker who meets with prospective donor families, Welde said she "can't think of anything more rewarding and gratifying than working with these families."
"It's very humanitarian to be able to look past your own pain at such a tragic time and try to do something that will prevent others from feeling similar pain. I can't think of anything more kind and humanitarian."