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First he wished to live to see his first grandchild. While living those 2-1/2 years battling his brain tumor, Dale got to see his first grandchildren born.
His second wish was to donate his organs to help someone waiting for an organ transplant. He had learned of organ donation while visiting a family member and talking with the family of a 17-year-old boy who was at that moment receiving a heart double-lung transplant. Dale decided then to become a donor and spent the next year and a half taking special care of his body (organs) to ensure the success of their donation. At the time, their hospital had no policy to cover such a situation. The Griffey family helped put that policy together so that when the time came, Dale's wishes could be carried out. Dale would give his organs to someone he would never meet so they could live.
Towards the end of those 2-1/2 years, in June of 1995, after spending 10 weeks at his hosptial bedside, his family finally saw his "last wish" become reality. As the cancer slowly brought him closer to death, Dale fought to keep his organs healthy, exercising when he could barely walk - family members helping him when he was too weak. Dale refused pain medications which he feared would damage his organs until a representative from the organ procurement agency assured him it would not hurt the organs.
Dale's wife, Mary, tells us "It would have been so much easier if we had let him die peacefully at home there in eastern Kentucky. He was in tremendous pain, but fought until the very end, not for his own life, but for somebody else's."
Off in Rhode Island, Ron Louro was dying of hepatitus C-induced cirrhosis of the liver, with just hours to live. Ron had been on the liver transplant list for 14 months with no time left. Dale's gift came just in time. They came in and said: "Ron we got one - it's your turn." Being wheeled down to surgery, he gave his wife, Rosalie, the thumbs up sign of hope. The transplant surgery was over in several hours, but it took over eight months of fighting infection and pneumonia before Ron was finally to return home in February of 1996.
"There must be a reason this happened," Ron said. "I just don't get it. There are thousands of people who need a transplant and die waiting to get one."
On Christmas Day, 1997, Mary Griffey finally got a call in response to her letters to Ron. They spoke for hours as she described Dale's determination to be a donor and Ron told of his own long battle of recovery. Ron and the Griffey family were later to meet when Ron invited them to come to march in the local Independence Day parade and promote organ donation with him. The reception by the people was amazing. Everyone came out of the crowds greeting the Griffey family and asking for donor cards. They gave out over 9,000 organ donor cards!
Mary Griffey and her girls join Ron for a photo shoot in front of their parade float to promote organ donation
For Ron Louro, meeting the Griffeys was bittersweet. He is consumed by a gratitude too deep for words. "Every day, I have prayed for this man and for his family. I don't know how to explain my feelings. My life was saved. His wasn't. It takes a special type of person."
In another note, Mary was told that Dale's kidneys were given to two men in Louisville, Kentucky.
Dale Griffey's family: (r to l) Sarah Griffey (pink shirt), Karen Griffey, Mary Griffey (Dale's wife), Ron Louro (liver recipient), Brittany Wright (baby), Gail Wright, Janet Griffey and Ashley Wright (little girl)
Please help the Griffey family to spread Dale's story in support of organ donation everywhere by sharing it with your own family and friends as you share with them your own desire to be a "hero" like Dale by passing on the miracle of life through your own gift of organ donation.
Note: Some parts of this story were paraphrased from a personal interview given by Dale's wife and daughters at the 1998 US Transplant Games to this Transweb correspondent, Jim Gleason. We sat together with grandchildren in their laps after a very emotional poetry reading session. One of Dale's recipients, Ron Louro, was also with us, obviously an accepted member of this very special family gathering. I was very inspired and humbled by this opportunity to share in their beautiful story and am pleased to offer it here for your own inspirational reading.
This story appears on TransWeb by permission of the author, Jim Gleason.
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