By Adriana M. Chávez / El Paso Times

4/22/2007

Almost a year ago, Irene Garcia Jr., a University of Phoenix student, was catching up on her homework when her 13-year-old son asked if they could go to the Walgreens down the street.

"I can't right now; I have too much work," Garcia said. "Why don't you go ahead and go?"

Garcia's son, Jaime, walked away, came back and asked, "Which should I take, my bike or my skateboard?"

"Whatever you feel more comfortable with," the mom said.

Jaime chose his bike.

Mere moments later, Garcia heard commotion on the street outside. She jumped from her desk and ran out the door.

"Qué pasó?" asked a neighbor who also noticed the commotion and emergency sirens blaring. Both women realized there had been an accident.

"My son, he was on a bike. Is there a bike?" Garcia asked the neighbor, panicking and pointing toward the accident.

The neighbor slowly nodded, and Garcia fainted before she had a chance to find out exactly what happened.

The next thing Garcia knew, she was at Thomason Hospital, where Jaime was in intensive care. He had been riding downhill on Rosewood Street in Central El Paso when he ran a stop sign and hit the passenger side of a gray Hyundai Accent that was westbound on Pershing Drive. The next day, May 1, he was declared brain dead, and Garcia and her ex-husband made a difficult decision to donate his organs for transplant.

Jeana Johnson

Meanwhile, almost 800 miles away in Longview, Texas, Jeana Johnson, 34, was trying to keep her mind off her kidney.

Over the years, Johnson's kidneys had slowly failed

When she was 29, she started seeing a nephrologist, and on Sept. 13, 2003, she had to have one kidney removed because doctors thought they had found a tumor. It turned out instead to be a blood clot.

Johnson had been on dialysis for three years and was put on a waiting list for a new kidney. She managed to lead a normal life and dived into her school work at Kilgore College in Kilgore, Texas, where she was majoring in social work, and into jobs at Fleetwood Travel Trailers and Kmart.

On May 3, Johnson was in class when her cell phone started vibrating incessantly. She tried to ignore it, since she wasn't allowed to have the cell phone with her in the first place. Finally, she stepped out of class and answered her phone.

"Get to Tyler, Texas," her doctor said. "We found a kidney for you."

Later, Johnson found out through a letter written by Garcia about what had happened to the boy whose kidney has kept Johnson alive.

"My heart was saddened that he was only 13 and he had to leave this world so early," Johnson said.

The letter, which was sent to Johnson through the Southwest Transplant Alliance, was comforting.

Garcia "had a decision to make, and God spoke to her and said Jaime wanted to go ahead and live," Johnson said. "It freed me some, but I feel like I'm not deserving. I feel rejuvenated, and it's a blessing to me to have it. I'm able to accomplish a lot of things."

Memories of Jaime

Not a day goes by when Irene Garcia doesn't think about her only child, who was a seventh-grader at Wiggs Middle School, where he played football.

In her living room, a large photograph of Jaime hangs just above the couch facing the front door. Garcia has kept Jaime's room mostly intact, and she keeps an array of his favorite expensive colognes in a small cabinet next to her bed. Garcia attended every Wiggs football game this past year, and the team dedicated the season to Jaime's memory.

"I don't know if it was my son or God talking to me, but as soon as they told me my son was brain-dead, I said, 'My son wants to continue living,' " Garcia recalled Friday as she sat just below her son's photo. "At first (Jaime's) dad didn't agree with it, but within a few minutes he agreed."

For about eight years, since divorcing her husband, Garcia and her son had been inseparable.

Garcia loves talking about Jaime. About the times he tried to teach her how to dance in their living room. About the trips to Cancun, Mexico, and to Dallas to watch the Cowboys play that the two had planned to take. About the times she made fun of him in front of his friends about still sleeping in her bed at night.

She remembers everything with an amazing calm.

"It hasn't been easy. I don't know where I find the strength," Garcia said. "I call him my big angel. As soon as I buried my son on a Saturday, I went back to work on Monday."

When Jaime died, Garcia initially thought she would quit studying for a master's degree in education at the University of Phoenix, but she remembered how proud Jaime was of her for going back to school. She hopes to graduate in November.

After Jaime's death, Garcia attended a quinceañera Jaime was supposed to be in. One of Jaime's friends asked Garcia to dance with him. She declined. She hasn't danced since the last time she and her son danced in their living room together, and she doesn't know if she'll ever dance again.

Garcia said Friday that she hopes to one day meet all three people who received Jaime's organs. A woman in Colorado received Jaime's heart and lungs, while a young boy in the El Paso area got a kidney.

Jeana Johnson received Jaime's left kidney.

"I'm hoping that I might be able to meet a part of him," Garcia said. "One day I want to hear his heart, so it will take me back to the day when I first heard his heart on the sonogram when I was pregnant with him."

An instant connection

Saturday afternoon, Garcia received an unexpected surprise.

Garcia was invited to speak to about 35 families of organ donors at the Southwest Transplant Alliance's annual Donor Family Recognition Ceremony at the Vista Hills Country Club.

In the days leading up to the ceremony, Garcia worried that she wouldn't know what to say. Once she took the podium, she read a poem one of Jaime's friends had written for him after his death.

After Garcia tearfully read the poem, Paula Duran, the regional client services coordinator for the Southwest Transplant Alliance, asked her to stay at the podium while she made a special presentation, one that Duran had been working on for almost a year.

In that instant, Johnson stood up from a table just inches away from Garcia's and walked toward her with a white vase filled with red roses. The two embraced, and their tears flowed.

Garcia had just received one-third of her wish, something she had suspected she would get when she walked into the room and past Johnson.

Garcia said she felt an instant connection with Johnson, even though Garcia had no idea who Johnson was at the time.

"It's hard to stand here, and I don't have anything to offer you," Johnson said. "I have no money, no gold or silver, but from the bottom of my heart, I would like to say thank you."