Inspired  by L. A. McMurray

Delivering stillborn Dawsyn James in April 2010, shattered me. I walked into the hospital pregnant, but I walked out carrying only a box and a blanket. It was the loneliest walk a mother could ever take. Grief became my world.

For a long time, I agonized over, why me? Why did I have to go through this? Why did my world fall apart? But in places where pain is raw, I also discovered a stirring of something else. It was a sense that if tragedy had invaded my life, perhaps there was a purpose I’d not yet seen. The question shifted, eventually, to why not me? No person is immune to loss or sorrow.

One afternoon, just days after burying Dawsyn, I stood in the aisle of the grocery store. My body felt numb, my mind was disoriented, my whole being was lost in grief. Then a stranger shoved past me, impatient and angry, nearly hitting me. For just a moment, I wanted to collapse. Then I thought, if grief has taught me anything, it’s how fragile life is, and how small many of our dramas are at the edges of someone else’s suffering. In that brutal confrontation with rudeness, my compassion refused to remain silent.

I made a vow to let kindness be a guiding light in my life. To let compassion matter, and not just in big gestures, but in the ordinary of each day, especially for my daughter with whom I loved fiercely. I wanted Dawsyn's life to leave a mark, something that would carry hope beyond heartbreak.

Two years passed, we got pregnant again, and another daughter was born in June of 2011. Something still pulled at me, questions I couldn’t shake. Why did Dawsyn get called home before he took a single breath? Did his death hold a bigger purpose? One night, in the quiet, I asked God for a sign.

Something unmistakable and put it on a billboard in neon lights. I was very specific in my request; I needed a big and clear sign.

Three days later, I was randomly reading an article about a “billboard” company donating space to a person in need of a kidney: a young girl whose face looked so much like my niece, it captured my attention even more. Then I did a double-take when I read the doctor’s last name and mine were the same --Turner. The girl's mother had donated her kidney for her daughter on December 10, 2004, and it was failing. Pardon me, December 10 th is my birthday. I felt chills, God laid out a path before me. This was my sign; this was God talking to me. My next question, was I brave enough to listen?

God’s response felt a bit heavy and overwhelming. Organ donation? That’s big, and quite extreme. But there it was: a billboard-sized sign that grief could become something else, something redemptive.

I made the call. I answered questions, underwent tests and after all the information was collected, I wasn't a match. Over that course of time, I learned so much and was confident I could help someone else who also needed a kidney. I talked with the National Kidney Registry, with doctors, and with my own heart. Eventually, after psychological screening and medical work up, I was given clearance to be an altruistic donor, giving without expectation of return.

On the morning of surgery in June 2013, laying on an operating table, a peacefulness washed over me. There was no fear, no second thoughts. I knew my life, my daughters, God’s love, all of it would carry on. I felt that if I called out, “Lord, if I die taking on this risk, it’s okay,” that God would hear it. This was more than a gift of an organ, it was a gift back to God, through serving someone I’d never meet.

The surgery was successful, though the recovery wasn’t easy. I spent nearly a

month in the hospital after a serious infection and complications. 

It’s absurd to me the full circle of how deeply interconnected we are. My kidney found its way to a man named Howard, a stranger, yet we are bound together by grace. He later wrote and shared how he walked his daughter down the aisle and fished with his grandchildren, precious moments he thought he might miss. In giving to him, I was given something too, the knowledge that life, even broken, can become a blessing.

I often say, “You’ll never experience true joy until you give something to someone who cannot repay you.” Because joy doesn’t come from exchange, it comes from letting loss become purpose, letting compassion outweigh fear. My kidney wasn’t simply a gift from me to Howard. It was a gift from me to God.

Every morning when I wake, I try to live in the light of God’s grace. I try to make each day count and help others in a small way, a stranger, a neighbor, my children. Maybe I lift a heavy box for someone, maybe I pay for the person behind me at the drive-thru, maybe I just offer a kind word. Something.

Grief taught me the depth of sorrow, and giving taught me the depth of love.

Even in the darkest places, through radical surrender and generosity, one life can ripple into a shining light. Dawsyn would like that. I believe somewhere, in ways I can’t see, he is beaming with pride.