1
Eubanks
Tyshera Eubanks
Marshall
Advanced Writing
16 February 2015
A Perfect Match
The week of Valentine's Day is always an interesting one. Every Facebook status I scrolled past was either someone complaining about their lack of plans or bragging about all the things they were going to do with their "bae."It's a week dedicated to love and it's adorably cute. Or it's adorably disgusting. It depends on how you look at it. After deciding to depart from the social networking site, I stumbled upon a news article on Yahoo, and it breathed a gust of refreshing air onto my perspective. It shined a light on the immensity and the power of love that I had never seen before.
Serendipity is a funny thing. It is also a romantic comedy movie starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale, but for Ashley McIntyre and Danny Robinson of Louisville, Kentucky, serendipity was a lifesaver. Their journey began when Ashley volunteered to donate her kidney to Danny after hearing him plead his case on a local radio station. She had no idea that her random act ofkindness would to lead her meeting the love of her life.
Figure 1: McIntyre and Robinson pictured on the day she saved his life.
"It was a whirlwind," describes Ashley. Life could have tugged her in any direction, but she happened upon the radio show that was featuring Danny that day. His story touched her. Tragedy had ravaged through his life. He lost his father at a young age and then when he was sixteen years old, he was diagnosed with Berger's disease. According to the National Kidney Foundation, thirteen people die every year while awaiting a kidney on the transplant list. Danny spent two years on this list before Ashley stumbled into his life.
Well, it shouldn't be considered stumbling. It was purposeful on her part. Ashley strutted into his life. She flew in there like Superman coming to save the day. As it turns out, Ashley didn't think of herself as a hero at all, she was more of a Clark Kent. She was just a mild-mannered young woman who didn't have much to offer the young man, but she did have a fully functioning kidney. Ashley chronicles this herself by saying, "I don't have any power or influence or money or anything like that, but I do have a working kidney that I could give. So, I mean, it was just kind of a human thing, you know?It was something I could do for another person, to change their life. "She did change his life. She wasn't only a great match for his kidney; she was also a great match for his heart.
The two of them held off on meeting for a while. Ashley did not want to meet Danny until she was sure that she was going to be a match for him. Once all of the tests came back with positive news, their families sat down for dinner. Danny's eyes met Ashley's across the table at the always idyllic Cheesecake Factory and he knew he was hooked. It was as if an Etta James song was playing in his head as he glanced across the table and realized that at last, his love had come along.
A modern day love story soon began when the two of them started texting back and forth. A lot of their friends teased them and implied that they should start dating, but they did not want to complicate matters. On April 17th, the procedure finally took place. He was in the hospital for five days, while she was only there for three. They bothsigned one another's blue-and-white, kidney-shaped hospital pillows. He autographed hers and scribbled down the perfect words to proclaim how he felt: "Words cannot express how much [you've] done for me."
Their relationship became official on Memorial Day. It could have been the smell of hot dogs and hamburgers permeating through the air or maybe it was the sweet taste of American freedom that brought them together. The rest is history. It is a beautiful story that they will soon tell their first child, who is due on June 9th of this year. After a journey together that included her saving his life and him proposing to her on Christmas morning, the two lovebirds are ready to spend the rest of their lives together. Ashley's random act of kindness not only gave Danny a life to live, but it gave him a new lease on life and someone to share it with.
Love sparked between these two. That burning desire that Johnny Cash sings about ignited a flamethat flickers ceaselessly to this day. Aristotle said, "love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." Well, Ashley and Danny proved that love is composed of two bodies having shared one kidney.
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