Latest / Campfire Guide to Parenting / The Ones Who Stepped Forward: A Living Kidney Donor Story
Transcript
- Ep 06 The Ones Who Stepped Forward: Yesterday, my family got the call we've been waiting for. December thirtieth. That's the date. On December thirtieth, my son Michael gets his new kidney. Now, I was supposed to record a different episode today. I'd planned it, I'd taken notes, and then the phone rang, and there was no way I was sitting down at this microphone to talk about anything else. So this one's different. This one's personal and it's a thank you. That's way long overdue. This is Campfire Guide to Parenting. I'm Mike McDonald. Welcome back to the campfire. It's just me today and no guest. If you've been listening for a while, you know this show is about real conversations, the kind you have when the fire is burning low and nobody's in a hurry. Today I need to have one of those with you. Because something's happened in my family that I think says more about that courage and about what it means to be a person than anything that I could ever teach. Now, let me tell you about my boy. So Michael is my youngest. He came home to us from China, and from the very first day he's been all in. he's funny, he's stubborn in the best kind of way. He's a kid who will sing at the top of his lung for hours, loves his dogs, enjoys trading squishies, and probably knows all the words from every descendant song. Michael also has chronic kidney disease. Now I'm not gonna get into all the medical details today. That's his story to tell, but I will tell you what it's like for a parent. It's it's like carrying a quiet weight everywhere you go. You go to work, you answer emails, you go to the gym, you laugh at dinner, and underneath all of it is this question that you never stop asking. What happens next? And he gets it, right? he's 13 and he's old enough to know that life can be fragile now, right? And the other night at home, the normally brave chin up kid said, I'm scared. What next? For a long time, the honest answer was, we don't know yet. We need a donor. So here's the part I really want you to hear. When people found out Michael needed a kidney, they stepped forward. friends, family, people that who've known him since the day he came home, and people who have never met him, people who heard his story secondhand said, test me. I want you to sit with that for a second. Because I don't think we talk about it the way maybe we should. To donate a kidney while you're alive, you volunteer for surgery, you take time off work, and you go through test after test after test, you accept a real risk, you give away a part of your own body and you do it for somebody else, somebody else's child in our case, right? I've spent 32 years around kids and the adults who care about them. And I've seen a lot of good people do a lot of good things. And I don't know that I can think of a more courageous and a more loving thing than a person can do than that. And every single one of you who raised your hand, whether you were a match or not, whether you made it through every test or not, you did it. You stepped forward. You said, I'll go. That's the act. The result was never up to you. The courage was and every one of you, thank you. Our family will never forget it. Now here's the part that still gets me. Of everyone who came forward, the best match was Michael's big brother Peyton. Remember, Michael was adopted. He and Peyton don't share a drop of blood, not one. And the doctors told us Peyton was such a strong match. It was remarkable that the two of them are not biologically related. Proof that the universe moves in great ways. Thought a lot about that in the last 24 hours. We spend so much energy as parents worrying about whether our kids will be close, whether they'll look out for each other when we're long gone, whether all those car rides and fights over the front seat and late night talks will add up to anything. And then one day your oldest son looks at you and says, Let me do it. I remember the day Peyton took the first test. I remember how nervous he was, waiting to see if the blood type was a match. And the look on his face when he knew he could still be considered. Peyton, I don't think you'll ever fully understand what you've given this family. You didn't just give your brother a kidney, you showed every one of us what family really is. It was never about biology, it's about who shows up. I'm so proud of you. I can barely say it out loud. So I'm saying it here, where it's on the record forever. There's one more person I need to talk to. The medical team is also approved a backup donor, someone who's been cleared and is ready just in case and in the event that Peyton for some reason can't be donating on the thirtieth. We don't know your name, we don't know your face, we don't know your story or what made you say yes. But I want you to know this to us, you represent the very best of what it means to be human. You chose to care about a kid that maybe you've never met. You chose to stand behind a family you're not a part of. Quietly, with no guarantee you'd ever be called, and no expectation that anyone would ever thank you. That kind of humility is really humbling. So, from a dad you may never meet, thank you. Whatever happens on December 30th, you already did the brave thing. You said, I'm here if he needs me. I hope somebody tells you that every day. I want to leave you with something before we close, because this is still a parenting show and this whole thing has been a freaking master class for me. We tell our kids to be brave, and we tell them to be kind and we put on we put it on posters and we say it on the way out the door when they leave for school. But I've watched a lot of kids grow up, and here's what I've learned. Kids don't learn courage from what we say about it. They learn it by watching what we do when it costs us something. And every person who stepped forward for Michael taught a whole room of people what courage looks like. My kid watched it, and their friends watched it, and Peyton watched it, and then he did it. Let your kids see you step forward, not in the big dramatic way necessarily, in the small ways, when a neighbor needs help and when a friend gets bad news, when something's hard and inconvenient, and you do it anyway. Let them see it out loud because one day. They'll be the ones raising their hand and stepping forward. And the second thing, family is built. It's built around a thousand ordinary moments that don't feel like they matter. The car rides, the arguments, the inside jokes, the nights that you sit at the edge of their bed and just listen. Those moments are doing something. I promise you, they're doing something. I got that proof yesterday. So that's where we are. December thirtieth, Peyton and Michael will lie in operating rooms at the same time, separated by a hallway, but inseparable as brothers. And I'm sure they will trash talk each other on entering those rooms, give each other a fist bump or a brotherly punch on the shoulder. I'll come back and let you know how it goes, I promise. And if the story moves you at all, here's one small thing that you can do. Look into becoming a registered Oregon donor where you live. Have that conversation with your family. It takes only a few minutes, and someday it might be the reason another dad gets the phone call I just got yesterday. To everyone who's prayed for Michael, Send a text, dropped off a meal. Ask how he's doing. Or raised your hand to be tested. You carried us, and you continue to do so now. Thank you. Thanks for sharing your time with me today on Campfire Guide to Parenting. I'm Mike McDonald and I look forward to hanging out with you around the fire next time.