I went looking for the family of my lung donor. It didn’t end as planned

Every day since my transplant, I have thought about my donor and her family, and, after 17 years, I decide to see if I can find out who she is. Mum and I have talked for years about visiting the births, deaths and marriages registry office in the city, but now I have a more immediate solution. Armed with what information I have, I drive to the State Library of Queensland, walk into a sleepy little room and sort through reels of newspaper microfiche until I find the date of my donor’s death.

“I imagine the dreams they had for her: following her passions, getting an education, being happily married, having children and living a full life.”Credit: Stocksy

My heart is in my mouth and my gut drops through the floor. I gently feed the reel into the machine and the front-page blares, “Clinton set to expand war against terrorists”, with a picture of Bill Clinton on one side and Osama bin Laden on the other, and a map of the Middle East floating between them. This is three years before the September 11 attacks of 2001, and there is a sense of unease as I read the headline, knowing what’s coming.

I have always known rudimentary facts about my donor, but never her name or age. I always expected all of these details to remain a lifelong mystery. Once I have scanned the microfiche and found her name via her death notice, I do an internet search on the off chance there’s any other information about her. I’m shocked to find a photo of her grave. I’m even more shocked to see a photo of her.

I knew she had red hair. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just did. She was married, but with her maiden name we share the same initials. She was 22 and we were born in the same year. It takes me by surprise that she was married. At 22. Her funeral notice reads “Tragically taken” – because she was. She was ripped away from her family in the most heavyhearted of circumstances, dying of a brain bleed. But then she gave. She gave me – and others – life.

My ears catch the low hum of people scrolling through microfiche around me, and I begin to cry. Being able to put a name and a face to the woman who saved my life brings a level of intense sorrow that I had sorely underestimated. I take photos of her death notice and grave and send them to Mum. I drive home in a fog, walk through my front door and call Mum. I don’t know what to feel, but that night I have the most restful sleep I’ve had in months.

In the weeks after my transplant, I begin making mental notes of what I want to write in my first thank-you letter. Transplant recipients are encouraged to write to their donor families, and I am eager to write a letter of my own. I know it will be censored of any identifying information because it’s nationally mandated that the donation process remains anonymous. I’d heard about recipients writing in code to their donor families, with the family eventually working out who they were. Sometimes they even meet, become close friends, have barbecues and go to the beach together.

But I also knew that things could go awry. I had heard stories about donor families becoming unhealthily preoccupied with the person who’s received their loved one’s organs, and it’s well-documented that there is a risk of unhealthy relationships developing. I never think about writing in code – all I want to say is thank you.

But how do you thank someone for saving your life? When I start writing, it is like turning on a tap, yet every word feels thoroughly inadequate.

What looms large in my mind is that this is not about me. There were likely several people writing to give thanks after this family made an impossible decision when their young daughter was lying brain-dead in ICU. I never expect to hear back, but I still send letters.

In my first letter, I thank my donor family and acknowledge that thanking them will never be enough. I tell them a little about how I couldn’t walk or shower myself before my transplant, and my plans for the future; that they had given my family and me a reason to hope. But committing this to paper seems at odds with the sorrow I feel at the loss of their daughter, which I know was sudden and brutal. It almost seems like an exercise in cruelty.

I think about the dreams my parents had for me, but theirs were different from the dreams of most parents. All they ever wanted was to keep me alive.

CARLY-JAY METCALFE

Here I am. I am alive – your daughter is not.

I imagine the dreams they had for her: following her passions, getting an education, being happily married, having children and living a full life. I think about the dreams my parents had for me, but theirs were different from the dreams of most parents. All they ever wanted was to keep me alive, for me to survive and be happy.

Despite feeling guilty about having lived, I tell my donor family that I want to study English literature at university and travel to Spain and Morocco. I tell them about my parents and sister, and how grateful they are that I survived. Another thing that lingers in the back of my mind was that my donor family might know who I am. I had been in the newspaper numerous times both before and after my transplant, and the date and year of my surgery had been published. I’d been on television, spoken at donor thanksgiving services, and done other media.

As time passes, I selfishly hope they know who I am, that they know I’ve tried to make something of my life, which would not have been possible without their ultimate act of love.

Then, one day, I learn my donor family have moved with no forwarding address. They are selfless and Christian – good people – and I respect that they were trying to continue with their lives while still lamenting the death of their daughter.

The only thing I know with 100 per cent certainty is that I will be atoning for surviving for the rest of my life. I know this may not be what people want to hear because it doesn’t fit the “happily ever after” narrative. It might be an uncomfortable truth, but it is mine.

Just before my 20-year transplant anniversary, I resolve to visit the cemetery where my donor is interred. On a Saturday morning in late August, I sit at my kitchen table with a cup of tea and write what feels like empty words into a card. It seems absurd to write “Thank you”, but I write it anyway. I pick roses from my garden, Mum picks some crucifix orchids, and we make a little posy that I clutch for the 90-minute drive.

In her first letter, Carly-Ray Metcalfe thanked her donor family and acknowledged that thanking them will never be enough. Credit: Sharon Danzig

We arrive at the tiny cemetery as a squall picks up, and after a few minutes of walking around, Dad gently calls out, “She’s over here.” My stomach lurches, and as I walk over to where my parents are standing, I feel a stream of sick rise in my throat. From having seen her gravestone in newspaper tributes over the years, I know the photo well, but it’s still a shock to see her face; to actually be there with her. And yet not with her.

Up close, she is effortlessly radiant and seems to be all-knowing as a corona of light floats on top of her head. She exudes grace, and there’s a tenderness behind her eyes.

As it happens, we’re not the only ones paying our respects this weekend. A large white envelope with her name on it sits sentinel at her grave, weighed down with rocks so it won’t be carried away by the wind. After a few minutes, I press down through my thighs to get to the ground, place my hands onto the stone and close my eyes.

There is a staggering sense of reverence, and I feel what a place of pain this is. But it’s also a place of peace: a place of renewal, rest and love. Over and over, I whisper, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” When I stand up and look across to my parents, Mum is crying and Dad’s face is red. They offer their thanks, and Dad walks over to plant a kiss on the stone where my hands have been. “It’s all because of you,” he says.

Over and over, I whisper, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” When I stand up and look across to my parents, Mum is crying and Dad’s face is red.

CARLY-JAY METCALFE

Not expecting this, I begin to cry. Dad clears his throat, pulls his sunglasses down and walks on.

Is it possible to love someone you do not know? To love someone you will never meet? To love a refugee fleeing war is to love a stranger. It feels completely natural – second nature, even – to feel such a depth of love for a stranger and their family who saved my life.

For me, it is the deepest kind of love. My donor family gave me space for all of the love I had left over from so much loss. If anyone is worthy of love, it is them. And in the end, as I sit writing this with my hound at my feet, maybe I am, too.

Edited extract from Breath (UQP) by Carly-Jay Metcalfe, out February 27.

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