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December 15, 2017
How do you thank a mother for giving you a chance at life by way of her son? In this season of Advent, it may be to remember the son’s life.
For Clare Lynch, a parishioner of Our Lady of the Lake Church in Hendersonville, this is the 10th year she has decorated the church’s sanctuary and rectory for Christmas to thank a mother she has never met and whose name she does not know for agreeing to donate her son’s kidney so that Lynch might have a longer life.
Eleven years ago, Lynch was undergoing dialysis due to kidney failure. After four years, she knew that she couldn’t endure the procedure much longer, maybe another year at best. In fact, her family was planning her funeral. One day, she suddenly experienced a pain so intense that she said she “bellowed out to God.” God’s response was to put in place all the people and circumstances she would need over the next four years to survive.
“He set me up with spiritual guides and physicians,” Lynch said. “Dr. Mark Wigger saved my life.” But it wasn’t until after her mother died in December 2005 that Clare Lynch got specific in her talks with God.
“My mother’s last words to me were ‘Haven’t you got your kidney yet?’” she recalled. Taking a walk in her neighborhood, Lynch, a mother of two who has been married for 48 years to Dr. Tim Lynch, a Nashville psychologist, saw a billboard outside Gallatin’s Church of Christ that said “You didn’t ask.” At that, she went down to the docks and began a talk with God like she’d never had before.
“I got very specific,” she said. “I thanked him for a 20-year old perfect match kidney.” Each day after that, she walked to the civic center in her hometown, continued to thank God for what she had not yet received, pray the Rosary, and that she may not have pain or cause pain. She asked for the kidney of a 20-year old for practical reasons: it was more likely to be healthy and to last. She’d had transplant possibilities previously, but they weren’t perfect matches or were from someone who was unhealthy in some way.
On Dec. 15, 2006, one year after she began praying, and after completing early all Christmas preparations – even shopping for the holiday meal, Lynch received a call at 3 p.m. from Saint Thomas Hospital telling her they had a 20-year old perfect match kidney.
“We dropped everything,” said her daughter, Colleen Mooy. “My mother felt connected to that kidney before it was even inside her.” Even to the point, her daughter recalled, that while waiting in the hospital Lynch looked at her doctor and said, “My kidney just landed on the roof.” Sure enough, she said, they soon learned that the kidney had just been delivered to the hospital by helicopter.
In the 11 years since receiving the kidney, Lynch has endured other health problems, including shingles, four surgeries for diverticulitis, and hip replacement, but she hasn’t had any kidney-related problems.
“I’m blessed,” Lynch said. “You don’t recover from all this unless God has a purpose for you. If I can pass this strength and faith onto my grandsons, they’ll be OK. I didn’t want the children to lose the faith. It’s carried me.”
Mooy said that while Dec. 15 is a happy anniversary for her family, they are well aware that it is a sad day for another family. They don’t know the identity of the donor or family, but Lynch has her own ideas.
“I picture him as a big football player. A college kid,” she said, someone very healthy and active. She learned that he had been sick for two days with meningitis but her doctor assured her the chance of contracting the disease was highly rare.
After the transplant surgery, Lynch was home in two days. While recovering, her pastor, Father Eric Fowlkes, visited her at home. He noticed her Christmas decorations and invited her to contribute to the church’s decorating. The following Christmas, she took over the sanctuary and rectory Christmas decorations.
“The church doesn’t have a decorating budget,” she said. “So I just decided to donate everything.”
With her family’s help, it takes about one day each to decorate the church and rectory. She makes the wreaths, sprays and bows. She has contributed nativity scenes and recently replaced the rectory Christmas tree. Others have offered to help, but the annual decorating has become her ministry to honor her kidney donor, his family, and especially his mother.
“His mother had enough sense to sign him up – in sorrow and at Christmas,” Lynch said. “Twenty-five people are alive because of him (the donor).” She wrote a letter to his mother, assuring her that she would be a good steward of her son’s kidney. She promised her she’d do everything possible to take care of it because it was only by the grace of God she had it, since so many people were in need.
For Lynch, the Christmas decorations are a way for people to see her gratitude and enjoy it as well. In an indirect way, she also hopes that it will inspire people to sign an organ donor card.
Father Fowlkes also sees the decorations as a manifestation of her thanks.
“She does this with gratitude to God and a deep commitment to her faith. Her decorations bring joy to the many people who gather here throughout the Christmas season,” he said. “She really puts her heart into making sure that everything is beautiful for Christmas. I am very grateful to Clare for all of her kindness to me and to our parish.”