For this story, I have to introduce you to my friend Anthony.

He was living in New Jersey at the time.

He had chronic kidney failure. And so, three times a week he had to go on for dialysis, which, of course, made it kind of hard to go about his regular daily life.

At one point in time, I was thinking, “Hey, you know, maybe I could be a kidney donor to him.” But these were kind of like mere thoughts and nothing—you know, I didn’t follow up. I didn’t talk to anybody about it.

A couple months go by, and at one point in time I find myself doing an Easter retreat. On the first day of the retreat, in order also to prepare myself a little bit, I went in for a visit to the chapel. Out of the blue, this question came back to my mind: “Hey, J.P., are you still willing to donate a kidney?”

I was kind of surprised because I hadn’t thought about it for months. But at that very moment there, I prayed about it, I thought about it, and I thought, “Yes, I want to follow up with it. And I want to see if that could eventually be a possibility.”

Then, on the next day of the retreat, one of the young people sharing was Gidget, Anthony’s daughter. First, she shared that during her teenage years, her mom went through a lot of suffering. She had lupus. She had kidney failure. And now, many years later, her dad kind of went through the same situation with the kidney failure. She said, “Even though we suffered so much as a family, I wouldn’t exchange this experience.”

Because recognizing Jesus on the cross in that suffering, she felt that she had come closer to God. And also, it had brought the family a lot closer together as well.

She walks off the stage, she comes back, she grabs the mic again, and she says, “By the way, just in case anybody is interested in knowing, my dad is O-positive.”

That came to me as a shock because I’m also O-positive. So I felt that the only reason she was sharing that was for me to hear that.

Then I understood also that God had allowed me, the day before, to make that decision in all peace and freedom, just between He and I at that moment in the chapel. So there was a gift.

Then we went ahead. We talked about it with some others in the Focolare community. We did some tests for the blood and the tissue. Everything was matching.

A few months later, we actually had the kidney transplant.

Of course, you hear also the consequences are—you know, you can live your life with one kidney. But it was, of course, not on my mind at all. I felt it was not just me wanting to do that, but I also felt kind of like that trigger from God, like, “Hey, if you want, this could be a possibility.” So it was kind of like a subtle invitation on His part to make me make that step out of love for Him. So that was also in the background here.

Of course, Anthony and I stayed in the hospital for a few days. I really felt a tremendous joy in my heart, you know. And I felt there was not just—not a joy because of, “I did something.” But I felt that joy came from God. That was very powerful and very tangible. It was a gift, you know, a special moment.

Jean Pierre Slee (Whashington – USA)
Photo: JP Slee’s personal archive