Here I am in the dialysis ward at Cornell University Hospital. I’m hooked up to some pretty complex equipment. The nurse just took a needle and inserted it into a vein in my left arm. Now she’s drawing some blood. Is it painful? You bet. But then again, the word “pain” is relative. Speak to some of the other folks in this ward, and my experience is a breeze.
I’m not doing this for fun, you know. I’m here to save someone’s life. There’s a woman – she’s 36 years old and she has acute leukemia. I don’t know her name. I don’t even know where she is from. But I do know that somewhere out there is a woman who is suffering terribly and her life is withering away; a once robust woman who is now losing hope. No, there is hope. Her life depends on me, upon my bone marrow. If I can overcome that selfish streak in me and find it in my heart to be kind enough go though a limited amount of pain, I may be giving her a great gift, the ‘gift of life.’ So, let me start from the beginning and tell you how I came to be lying here surrounded by tubes and running wires filled with my very own blood.
I was taking a group of boys up to Montreal. These boys were being rewarded with a trip in honor of their completing a very important part of their studies. It’s a lot of hard work, but now came the time for adventure and fun. The drive up to Canada was fun. The evening, we arrived in Montreal, we headed to the Yeshiva Gedolah of Monteal, where we would say our evening prayers and be given the addresses of where we would stay. After dropping off the last set of boys at their hosts’ homes, I headed to where I would be staying. The Finkelstein’s were an older couple and the husband was a rabbi. I knocked on the door and was welcomed inside. I was led downstairs into the basement and into a clean, neat room. There were two beds and a writing table. After observing my surroundings for a little longer and hanging up my clothes, I went straight to sleep. The next morning, I got out of bed and looked around the room. There were some books on a shelf and two fresh towels left for me. On the walls above the table were several laminated newspaper clippings. I wandered over to the wall to read them. One photo showed a young man posing with the Mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg. Another clipping was about someone by the name of Finkelstein who donated bone marrow. What’s that I wondered? I decided that this would be perfect “food for talk” at the Shabbos meal.
I headed upstairs and introduced myself again to the host and hostess and told them more about myself. Then I asked, “By the way, what is that newspaper article about some sort of bone marrow donation hanging on the wall downstairs?”
“Our son was a bone marrow donor and saved someone’s life,” Mrs. Finkelstein announced proudly. Then her husband began to explain, “There’s an organization called Gift of Life. The work they do is truly amazing. In a nutshell, they have a registry bank for people who need bone marrow. They are constantly testing people and matching their DNA with leukemia patients who need bone marrow. Our son was registered with the Gift of Life Foundation and has been found to be a match. He decided to go ahead with it and he actually saved someone’s life.” Just to be polite, I asked what the procedure entailed. “It’s a pretty easy and safe procedure,” the husband said with enthusiasm, his wife shaking her head in confirmation. “There are two ways to do it. Either they harvest the stem cells from the blood or they eject it directly from the bone. The procedure lasts about five hours, but is for the most part painless.” I just nodded my head in understanding. I had no clue about bone marrow nor did it interest me that much, but they went on to explain what exactly bone marrow was and its function. Slowly, the course of the conversation changed and we were soon on to subjects with which I was more familiar.
When Shabbos was over, we drove to the stadium where the celebration would take place. It was a truly uplifting experience. Hundreds of boys gathered to celebrate. At two in the morning we came back to Montreal and went straight to bed. We would have to be up early the next morning so that we would have enough time to get back to our hometown before night fall on Sunday.
We arrived at our school just as the sun was setting. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. We emptied the luggage from the trunks of the cars and waited for the parents to come pick up their children. At five o’clock I was home, utterly exhausted.
I was reclining on the living room couch, thinking about the days’ events, when the phone rang. I usually ignore the phone, but for some reason my hand reached out for the telephone. “Hello,” I inquired?
“Hello?” asked the voice on the other end of the line. “Is this Asher Schwab?”
“Yes.”
“Hi,” the man said. “I’m Menachem Berkowitz. Do you remember me?”
“Menachem Berkowitz?” I repeated in question, jogging my foggy memory. “Of course I remember you. We were in neighboring rooms at school in Jerusalem, right?. . I was in room 25 and you were in room 26.”
“Wow!” Menachem exclaimed. “You really remember that?”
“Those were the good old days. Tell me, why the phone call?”
“Well, you see, I am a volunteer with an organization called Gift of Life.” Okay, I thought to myself, not connecting it to anything I had heard over Shabbos. “He wants a donation. No problem. I enjoy giving Tzedakah.” But Menachem continued, “Did you ever hear of our organization?”
“No. I don’t think so. What do you guys do?”
“Let me tell you. Gift of Life was started by a man named Jay Feinberg. He had Leukemia and the doctors gave up on him. He did some research and decided to start a registry called Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation. The registry matches people who have healthy bone marrow with people who need that exact type.” Menachem stopped to catch his breath. “Understand so far?”
“I’m with you,” I quipped, still not knowing what he was getting at.
“Well, your name came up on the registry as a potential match for someone with Acute Leukemia. If you are confirmed as perfect match, you can save her life.”
Suddenly, the events of Shabbos flooded my mind – The newspaper clippings, the meal, my host’s explanations. Everything.
“Wow!” I whispered in shock. “That is amazing.”
“It is,” Menachem confirmed. “It really is.”
“You’re not going to believe this,” I said. “But I was in Montreal over the weekend and I just heard all about this procedure.”
“Really? From whom?”
“From the parents of a donor!”
I related to Menachem what had happened over Shabbos and he confirmed that Finkelstein was indeed a donor for the Gift of Life. “It is an unbelievable thing to do.” Menachem went on. “I did it. It’s a great feeling to know that you saved someone’s life. Please, think about it and get back to me.”
Now the procedure is over. I asked the nurse, “Can I write my recipient a note?”
“Sure,” she answered and took out a piece of paper for me to scribble down my thoughts. This is what I wrote: “I am praying for you. Hope all goes well. May God bless you and send you a speedy recovery. Your donor.”
So, now you know what I’m doing here. How can’t I be here? This is my calling, a heavenly message which is calling out, “Asher ben Moshe! You have the chance to save another human being. Do it. For if you save her it is as if you saved the entire world.”