CHILD'S NEW LIFE BRINGS JOY TO MOM OF DONOR

A phone conversation with an 11-year-old Alabama boy has confirmed Anne Wright's belief that a part of her son, who died more than a year ago, lives on.

Wright spent several hours Saturday on the phone with Jacob Whitehead of McCalla, Ala., and his mother, Donna Whitehead. Jacob was the recipient of the liver donated from Wright's son Jacob, 33, who in July 1998 died after falling from a car in Arkansas.

"His first question to me was, 'How are ya'll doing?'" Wright said, impressed by Jacob Whitehead's compassion.

"They are so thankful," Wright said of the Whitehead family. "But it was hard on them because they didn't know what to say."

What do you say when one person's loss of a son means your son has an opportunity at life?

Wright said they talked about how well Jacob is doing, about children and grandchildren, and "just ordinary things."

Wright is glad of the decision made about her son's organs, especially now after talking to the Whiteheads.

"It's been healing to me to know that someone else benefited," Wright said.

That is a feeling shared among most donor family members who communicate with organ recipients, said Gary Anderson, transplant coordinator for Southeast Missouri with Mid-America Transplant Services.

"Most say it made something good come out of something senseless," he said.

Anderson said it is becoming increasingly common for the families of donors to want to communicate with recipients.

"In this area, nearly half do end up meeting and talking with those who received the organs," he said.

Leading up to this weekend's conversation, Wright went through the steps most donor families go through to communicate with recipients.

Wright had requested that she be allowed to correspond with those who received her son's liver, kidneys, pancreas and heart. She sent letters through the Arkansas agency that oversaw the donation, but the Whiteheads were the only ones who wrote her back.

Wright and the Whitehead family had exchanged letters for a year when the agency gave each the information to contact the other directly.

It was through those letters that Wright learned that Jacob Whitehead's liver shut down around his 10th birthday. He was sick for a month and had been told a liver transplant was his only hope for survival.

The call came that a match had been found after a particularly bad two days, Wright said. Still the then 10-year-old was concerned for the donor's family.

"His mother told me that on the way to surgery Jacob told her he was glad and sad: He was glad for the transplant so he could live but sad because it meant someone else had died.

Jacob Wright had put on his driver's license that he wanted to be an organ donor. That made it easy for his family members to give their consent to donate the organs when he died.

"He had told us he was putting that on his license," Wright said of her son. "He said, 'I won't be needing them if I die. If someone else can use them, let them.'"

Anderson said it is important for people who want to donate their organs to share that intent with relatives. Even if you have signed a donation card, relatives still must give consent before the organs can be donated.

Wright said they were still able to have an open-casket funeral for her son.

Now Wright and several members of her family have made the decision to donate their organs when they die.

"I'd never really thought about it until this happened," Wright said. "Now I'd encourage anyone to donate. It allows something good to come from a tragedy."

From their conversation, Wright learned that besides sharing the same first name the two Jacobs both liked wrestling and had similar eating habits.

Wright hopes to meet Jacob Whitehead some day.

"He's my last link to my son," Wright said.