One way to say Thank You...
Donating Blood
Photo By: Flickr/Paul L Dineen
The Bloodmobile returned recently to our parish, and I took my usual turn in a long list of donors. When the technician apologized for the bruise, I told her that I would wear it as a badge of honor. After all, I would not be here if it were not for other donors, long ago in South America.
Sixty years ago, there was a young couple expecting their third child, happy and excited. They lived in a new, small industrial town beyond the mountain range that border the Brazilian Southeast. They had grown up in the big city of Rio de Janeiro and had moved there shortly after their marriage, he a brand-new engineer working at the huge national steel mill, she a beautiful, talented and dedicated mother and wife. His career was progressing well, and he was already overseeing a sizeable section of the plant.
They left for the hospital when the time came. There was no special reason to expect the unusual. Yet it turned out to be a difficult labor, long and complicated. When finally the beautiful baby girl was born, the mother would not stop bleeding.
There was dreadful fear in her husband’s heart, when they told him that she might be bleeding to death, and that the small, new hospital did not house a suitable blood bank. Their whole world they had built together must have passed through his mind!
As the story was told so many times later, he ran to the entrance of the hospital, in a daze of pain and despair, praying and asking fervently that God and the Blessed Virgin would come to help. And there they were, the two angels sent from heaven at that very moment: two large, healthy men from the steel plant, two of the men he oversaw every day at work, who had just arrived to donate blood.
Grabbing them by the arm, the desperate and grateful young father flew them to the surgery room, where the two of them gladly and most willingly complied, so moved they were to be playing the role of life-saving angels.
Nourished by the blood of two strong and healthy Afro-Brazilian men, the young mother’s life was saved. The baby thrived and grew up to be a beautiful, accomplished and generous woman.
That baby was one of my older sisters, and I would not be here to tell the story if my mother, that fateful day, bled to death, leaving her infant daughter in the arms of a devastated husband. None of us, her subsequent seven children, would have seen the light of day.
My parents went on to have a long family life filled with faith, love and adventure. Our family became for many a center of friendship and culture. None of our Christmas and Easter celebrations, First Communions, weddings… none of the many happy activities at my childhood home would have happened, if it were not for the gift of the two men in the hospital, long ago. Today my siblings and I are parents and grandparents, writers, teachers, engineers, musicians and computer programmers. The youngest, born almost twenty years after this story took place, is a religious Benedictine sister.
The stories of lives saved vary immensely. But the idea is the same, as the friendly tech told me in the Bloodmobile: blood saves lives. People need blood in all kinds of circumstances, and it could be any of us in need, at any moment.
Next year I will return when the Bloodmobile comes, and again I will wear my bandage as a badge of honor. And maybe I will tell them this story.
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About the Author
Writing has been a passion since primary school in her native Rio de Janeiro, where Ana grew up the seventh of a noisy, large, and happy Catholic family. She graduated with an Art degree from a small Catholic college and came to the USA to pursue graduate work, when she met her husband Geoff, now a university professor and international scientist. Their seven children range from 14 to 28 years old and as they grow into adulthood they enjoy activities like sending their parents postcards from all the continents of the world, including a recent sent from the single Post Office in Antarctica! As a mother at home, embracing Catholic family life centered on both faith and academics, Ana have been active in myriad ways as she watched her children grow in virtue and in excellence. They have grown to be Geography experts, piano and voice virtuosi, young successful professionals, dedicated teachers, classical language scholars and budding artists.
During her homeschooling career of over twenty years, she has always been very involved in local homeschool groups, teaching Art, Geography, History, and Latin to small groups among other things. She taught NFP and has written Catholic plays for children, as well as articles and features for Catholic periodicals. Ana is the author of the Catholic Textbook Project workbooks, and wrote the chapter on Geography in the the book "Why Should I Learn This?" (edited by Maureen Wittman, 2015) She has been a book reviewer for 20+ years for various sites including Love2Learn and Amazon.com. In just about every place they have lived (and there were many of them!), Ana has led book clubs for women. An occasional poet, Ana was recently awarded a national poetry prize from the Catholic Daughters of the Americas.
With the two youngest now quite self-propelled as part-time homeschoolers, Ana is beginning to look into ways to become more involved in her parish and community. She has a few writing projects in the back burner... and a supportive husband who wants to read her stuff. She thanks God for a life filled with adventure and fulfillment, and continues asking everyday for His guidance and His blessing.
Ana can be reached at anabragahenebry@gmail.com
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