The single phone call that changed my world

It was one morning in late January 20 years ago. The city was already steamy with summer heat and the promise of a scorcher to come. I was crossing York Street on the way to work when my phone rang.

Middle brother Paul was calling from England. In those days, no one called a mobile from overseas unless the news was urgent or catastrophic.

It turned out to be both.

Our elder brother, Tim (I am/was the youngest of three) had suffered a massive stroke. Just 50 years old, he was hanging by a thread in the intensive care unit of a UK hospital.

“You’ll need to get here,” said Paul.

All around me, rhythms of the city continued unchanged, which struck me as quite ridiculous given how everything had changed utterly.

The Galvin brothers in 1968. Nick, Tim and Paul. Credit:

I made the calls I needed to do – my wife, my boss – and booked a flight to London that evening. Then I found myself in the cool sanctuary of Saint Mary’s Cathedral (apparently, the muscle memory of Catholicism runs way-deep even after years of rejecting the church), not so much praying as trying to process what had happened and what was most likely about to happen.

I thought about how I grew up idolising my big brother Tim, who was 12 years older. Lithe, 1.9m tall, a passionate mountaineer, cyclist and sailor who had followed our father’s footsteps into medicine, Tim was my childhood hero. More than anything I wanted to be like him and to win his approval, joining him on climbing trips around Yorkshire even though I was (and still am) terrified of heights.

Thirty-six hours later I was hugging the substantial form of brother Paul at Heathrow.

The late Dr Tim Galvin.Credit:

“It’s not looking good,” he said. “He’s in Hull Royal Infirmary. If he does wake up he’s going to kill us for letting them take him to bloody Hull.”

Paul was always the funny one. I always wanted to be funny like him and adventurous like Tim.

The family, including our mum and dad and Tim’s own family, were all at the hospital. In contrast to their red-eyed, exhausted faces, Tim looked strangely well, surrounded by the machines keeping him alive.

He never woke up and died gently and peacefully some 24 hours later. He’d always been very clear in his commitment to organ donation and, shortly after he was declared dead, we all gathered in a small private room. There an extraordinarily empathetic and caring transplant co-ordinator talked us through the process and then began ticking off Tim’s organs on her clipboard.

Were we happy for his lungs to be taken? His skin? His heart …? Dad nodded yes to each. While it sounds macabre, the whole ritual was strangely comforting.

At the end of the process the young doctor put away her clipboard and offered her sincere thanks on behalf of the people who would receive Tim’s organs. Then she asked somewhat incongruously if we would each like a keyring engraved with the slogan of the donor network, “The Gift of Life”.

We each gravely accepted our keyring. I remember thinking it was a pretty poor trade – my brother’s life for a small metal disc.

Back in Australia a couple of weeks later I came across the keyring in my jeans pocket. It released a tsunami of tears and then I realised that, far from being a worthless token it is effectively priceless. The lacquer has long since gone but I’ve worn it around my neck ever since, a constant reminder of a beautiful brother taken too soon and the summer everything changed.

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