Love is something that we’ve all experienced, and done so in a number of ways. It’s something that’s cherished, and so, when lost, it causes a hurt like no other.
Losing a loved one is the most difficult thing in life. When that loved one is a child, the loss is devastating, and if an only child, more so. There’s little chance that such loss can be articulated, that such a depth of despair can be truly captured by mere words. It’s a part of the human condition that is vocabulary-limiting.
Two years ago, St. Joseph’s Catholic High School secretary Susan Love experienced such a loss. Her son, Phillip, her only child, died tragically in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And as if it were possible to make such a thing worse, Phillip didn’t lose his life as much as he had it taken from him, snatched away through an act of senseless violence perpetrated by others.
But a hospital bed-side decision made by Susan two years ago is now taking on a life of its own, figuratively, but also quite literally as well.
Susan Love did something that any one of us can do, just by signing the back of our driver’s licence, but often not thinking to do so. She signed a release giving doctors permission to harvest Phillip’s organs for transplant in others, something so simple, yet so profoundly selfless.
You need go no farther than Ralph Poley to understand what this means. Poley’s an expert at this sort of stuff. He’s a high-end attorney from St. John, New Brunswick, and he knows the Phillip Love story probably as well as anyone. That’s because Ralph Poley carries the heart of Phillip Love inside of him every single day of his life. The recipient of a heart transplant, Ralph lives because of the generosity of Phillip. And so, in a sense, Phillip continues to live as well. Not as before, certainly, but there’s something there, and somehow, in some small way, his loss is not made total. It’s not final. A part of him is still here.
And it makes all the difference in the world.
On Saturday, May 9, 2009, Susan Love’s planning to throw a party of sorts. Right here at St. Joseph’s High School, she’s going to have some folks over, cut some cake, and talk to people about how important it is to make that same commitment she did on behalf of her son Phillip. She’ll tell you that the gift of an organ is perhaps the greatest gift one can bestow upon another, and that it can be the difference between life and death for that person, that total stranger lucky enough to receive it.
One such recipient is Ralph Poley, although he’s a stranger no longer. You see, Ralph Poley’s going to be there, too, with his wife. And you can just ask them.
They’d be happy to tell you all about it.
