Sunday, November 4, 2007

By KATIE MENZER / The Dallas Morning News

FARMERS BRANCH – Alfonso Solis remembers sitting in the hospital and repeating one thought over and over in his mind. "I remember praying to God, 'Please, just give me back my wife, give me back my wife,' " Mr. Solis said. "But he didn't."

His wife died suddenly of a hemorrhaging blood vessel in her brain on Sept. 29, just 12 days after giving birth to their first child.

Mr. Solis' prayers weren't answered, but he and his wife, Cecilia, were able to fulfill the hopes of Andrew Madden and his family. The 13-year-old from Odessa was the recipient of Ms. Solis' heart, and the young Red Sox fan was given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to throw out the first pitch at Game 2 of the World Series in Boston.

"I'm happy he has a second chance at life," said Mr. Solis, smiling before suddenly dropping his tear-filled eyes to the ground. "But I miss my wife."

Mr. Solis can recall the last hours of his love's life with heart-rending clarity.

It was Sept. 28 – a Friday night – and Ms. Solis' family had come from Houston to spend time with the 24-year-old new mother and her baby daughter, Emily, born just 11 days before.

They had dinner and chatted for a while in the Solises' new Farmers Branch home the day shopping and decorating the house and nursery, and she knew she would have to be up again in a few hours to feed and care for Emily.

"It was about 10:30 p.m., and I heard her call my name," Mr. Solis said. "She before Ms. Solis headed for bed about 9 p.m. She had been tired after spending sounded like she was in pain, and I rushed to her."

Mr. Solis found his wife in bed and as white as a sheet. She complained of a terrible pain in her head, but she was barely coherent.

"By the time the ambulance arrived – they got here real fast – she was limp in my arms," he said.

Doctors explained to Mr. Solis that a blood vessel had ruptured in his wife's brain – most likely an abnormality she'd had since birth – and they had placed Ms. Solis on life support in the hopes that she would wake up or surgery could be performed.

But by early Saturday morning, the physicians at Parkland Memorial Hospital realized Ms. Solis' brain hemorrhage was "catastrophic," and she wouldn't wake up again. They asked Mr. Solis if he wanted her organs to be donated.

"It's funny because, last year, I was having heart palpitations, and we'd discussed what we would want to happen if something really bad happened," Mr. Solis said.

Her liver was donated to a local 22-year-old man. Her lungs went to a 56-year-old married woman from North Texas with one child. One kidney and pancreas were donated to a 32-year-old woman from East Texas, and the second kidney was transplanted into a 50-year-old woman from New York with one daughter.

Ms. Solis' heart went to young Andrew.

"My wife gave life on two occasions – when she gave birth to our daughter and when she helped those five people," Mr. Solis said.

Andrew's mother cries each time she speaks of the woman who saved her son's life.

Andrew had been in heart failure at Children's Medical Center Dallas before the transplant, but now he is out of the hospital, gaining weight and planning to return to his passion – playing baseball – as soon as he can.

"We thank the family for raising such a beautiful human being, and we thank Alfonso for loving her so passionately," said Lauri Wemmer, Andrew's mother, fighting back tears.

"Andrew knows he has a very loving and giving heart. He vows to take the very best care of it, to live life to the fullest. He hopes that one day he can touch lives in a way that Cecilia and her family have touched our family's lives."

Now, Mr. Solis, a medical-bill collector, is a single father with a newborn and a house his wife hadn't finished decorating. They had moved in only a month before she died.

"She's always wanted a house of her own," Mr. Solis said.

He's been sleeping on an inflatable mattress in an otherwise empty room because he can't bear to sleep in the bed they shared.

They would have been married six years yesterday.

"Sometimes I wake up and I don't remember and I expect to see her there beside me," Mr. Solis said.

A couple of arrangements of dry, withered flowers – gifts for Ms. Solis after Emily was born – still sit atop the piano. Mr. Solis smiles when he looks at them, then laughs and speaks of his healthy baby girl.

His parents and in-laws have been helping him care for Emily, but he's worried about the future.

"I really need help. I don't know how to do ponytails. I don't know about figuring out color combinations for a little girl," he said. "I have no experience in these matters."

In the past month, Mr. Solis has been using a video camera to record his friends and family as they recount memories of his wife. He plans to compile the footage and give it to his daughter when she's older.

He vowed that baby Emily will know her mother and that her mom loved her very much.

"When I kiss her, I always tell her these are kisses from me and they are kisses from your mom," he said.

Mr. Solis had been training for a marathon and planned to return to school to finish his undergraduate degree in marketing, but both those goals are on hold now.

He said his life with his wife was a love story, but now, with the story at its end, his grief is too large to allow anything else in.

"She brought out the best in me," Mr. Solis said. "I haven't canceled her cellphone. I still call it so I can hear her voice on the answering machine."