Chapter 11

A couple of months later, Randy and Aly had been dating a year, and it was the 3 year anniversary of Aly's heart transplant.

Aly was sitting in Randy's living room in St. Louis...and he had gone up stairs to shower after he'd done his night time work out. Aly looked over and saw a white envelope laying on the floor by the front door under a table he put his mail and keys on.

Aly walked over and picked it up, noticing it was from an organ donor hospital in St. Louis...His wife must've been a donor. She went to place it on the table and something fell out, she squatted down and retrieved it off the floor. It was a piece of folded up blue stationary.

She unfolded it and started to read:

To the Donors Family,

Words can not express what you or your loved one has done for my life. I was 19 when I found out I needed a heart transplant. When I was suddenly given a heart for no rhyme or reason, I was unbelievably thankful to god, to the medical staff, to my family and to the donor and their family for giving me back my life.

After a couple of months, I suddenly realized I was alive because someone else was dead. The realization that someone had to die in order for me to live, let's face it...it was scary. Then the fact that the heart came from some ones daughter, son, mother, father, brother, sister, husband, or wife. I know words mean nothing to losing a loved one...and though they can't bring back the one you love...I want you to know I will forever be in debt to you and your family.

I thank God everyday that I'm allowed to wake up and live my life...and praise him every night for having another day with my family and loved ones. I don't know how you say thank you for the gift of life...or even how you say thank you for a heart...but if there ever was a way, I'd say it a 100 times a day to you and your family.

Thank you so much.

Alyssa looked at the stationary and started crying.

She couldn't believe it...it was something that only God could've done.

Alyssa leaned over and scribbled a note for Randy about a family emergency and grabbed her rental car keys...calling her brother as she left the house, so he'd cover for her...Paul worried when he heard Alyssa crying, she said she'd be on the next flight to New Hampshire...she was in dire need of talking to him...and immediately.

Aly drove down the street, with the blue stationary note in her hand, every time she looked at it she cried harder and harder...she got on the flight and just before take off, Randy called her cell...she pulled herself together and said, she had to go and she'd call when she could...then said she loved him. He told her he loved her and to take her time.

As she sat on the plane in the middle of the night...she re-read the letter over and over...she recognized the words, the handwriting, and even the blue stationary, Paul had bought it for her while she was in the hospital...

She sat and re-read HER letter.