My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. My throat was beginning to tighten up and my hands began to tremor a little bit. All of the sudden, I had never been so nervous in my life; so many things were running through my mind at once. “Will the news be good or bad?” “Please God, let her be okay, please let her live…she’s so young.”

Madison had been in the hospital for months and things were not looking very good. She had an enlarged heart and was in desperate need of a transplant; however, there wasn’t a donor. There are so many people in America that are not organ donors and so many people need new organs desperately to stay alive.

In September of 1997, more than 55,000 people in the U.S. were on the national waiting list for an organ (Share 1). That is a lot of people who need life-enhancing organs to just stay alive. Most people do not know that there is such a great need for organ donors. A lot of patients die while waiting for an organ transplant. A shocking average of 10 people dies everyday because not enough organs are available (Finn 2). I prayed to God that Madison would be one of the lucky ones and receive a new heart quickly. I had suffered the loss of my best friend years before, and I did not know what I would do if another close friend of mine passed away.

I was standing in a very long hallway next to Tarrah while she was on the pay phone

and I could hear a choir singing Dies Ire in the background. The concert hall was very large

and had wonderful acoustics.

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