A Change of Heart
by
Claire Sylvia with William Novak

A Change of Heart stimulates the mind with possible answers to some of
life's deepest mysteries.  It opens our spirits to new and ultimately
comforting ways of accepting our mortality.  It inspires us with the
mesmerizing story of a courageous, sensible, and generous woman who was
determined to understand what was happening to her and would not rest
until she knew.  And, most of all, it floods the darkness of tragedy
with an immeasurable light.

Claire Slyvia is a dancer and choreographer.  She has also founded
several transplant support groups, lectured around the world, taught
dream choreography, and currently preforms as a ballroom dancer.

Acknowledgments

To protect their privacy, I have changed the names of some of the
individuals mentioned in this book, including the members of my donor's
family and the transplant recipients who are quoted or written about in
these pages.

William Novak and I want to recognize some of the many people who helped
us along the way: Mary Ansaldo, John Brinduse, Isabella Clemente,
Maureen Dezell, Larry Dossey, Gail Eddy, Brendan Farrington, Patricia
Garfield, Jim Gleason, Myrna Goldstein, Rick Ingrasci, Bob and Barbara
Katz, Marilyn Kurtz, Ruth Levy, Mike Mattil, Marilyn Mazza, Taren
Metson, Nancy Mulvehill, Pam Newton, Peter Ogden, Paul Pearsall, Elaine
Rogers, Linda Russek, Terry Schraeder, Gary Schwartz, Rupert Sheldrake,
Bernie Siege!, Walillian Tyson, Claire and George Vasios, and
particularly Sheila Weiser.

We especially want to thank agent Ike Williams, whose early support and
wise advice made this book possible; Robert Bosnak, who contributed many
valuable hours and insights; and our editor, William Phillips, whose
clear, consistent vision kept us on track.

I also wish to thank my friends and family members who were there when I
needed them; Dr.  John Baldwin and the wonderful staff at YaleNew Haven
Hospital, and (again!) Gail Eddy; my fellow transplant recipients who
shared their experiences; Bill and Linda Novak, who opened their hearts
and their home to me; and Jerry Mulcahy, who remained at my side
throughout this long and exciting project.

Finally, I am indebted to the family of Tim Lasalle for welcoming me,
answering my questions, and no small matter saving my life.

Foreword

By BERNIE SIEGEL, M.  D.

I know the truth of Claire Sylvia's remarkable story.  I met her in the
hospital shortly after her transplant, and we have stayed in touch since
then.

While I can't necessarily explain the amazing things that have happened
to Claire, I have no trouble believing them.  That's why I enjoy
speaking with astronomers and quantum physicists, who are continually
dealing with mysterious and unexplained events.  I look forward to the
day when physicians, too, will be comfortable acknowledging and
accepting the mysteries all around us.

That day is coming, and the signs are everywhere.  People like Candace
Pert, Joan Borysenko, and hundreds of others are exploring the frontiers
of the mind-body connection.  In new journals like Advances and
Alternative Therapies, scholars and thinkers are sharing new ways to
understand the miracles of healing.

In San Francisco, a cardiologist named Randolph Byrd did a study on the
effects of prayers in 393 coronary-care-unit patients. The group was
randomly divided into two, half to be prayed for and half not, although
neither the patients nor the administrators were told who was in which
group.  When the study was over, the prayed-for patients did
statistically better.

Before this study was published, it was rejected by two major medical
journals.  That's unfortunate, because we need to open ourselves to all
possibilities.  If Dr.  Byrd's article had been about a new drug that
caused these kinds of results, it would have been published immediately.

Although doctors tend to shy away from metaphysics, science and the
spirit don't hare to be at odds.  "The most beautiful experience we can
have," wrote Einstein, "is the mysterious.  It is the fundamental
emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science."

Long before I met Claire, I began working with people who had serious
illnesses.  I found that about 15 to 20 percent of these patients,
either consciously or unconsciously, wanted to die.

Another, much larger group seemed most interested in pleasing the
doctor.  They took their pills faithfully, showed up for appointments,
and generally did whatever the doctors advised unless that advice
included a radical change in their lifestyles.

The third group, another 15 to 20 percent, consisted of patients whom I
call "exceptional." These people refuse to be victims.  They educate
themselves and become specialists in their own care.  They don't
hesitate to question their doctors, whom they regard as partners rather
than authority figures.  The key thing about exceptional patients is
that they keep their power. As you'll discover, Claire Sylvia was an
exceptional patient although in her case patient may be the wrong word.
Patient, after all, implies a submissive sufferer who is willing to
undergo whatever is necessary without speaking up or raising a little
hell.

Exceptional patients don't act that way.  They learn from others but
they make their own decisions.  They reach out and take chances, and if
a particular treatment isn't working, they let it go and try something
else.

Claire knew intuitively what many doctors are only now beginning to
understand that physical healing can be significantly helped by opening
up the lines of communication between the mind and the body.  One way of
doing that is through our emotions: working through negative feelings
such as hate and jealousy, and embracing positive emotions, such as
love, acceptance, and forgiveness.  Another way is to visualize the
healing process taking place in our bodies, and Claire did that, too.

While our minds and our bodies communicate constantly with each other,
most of this exchange occurs on an unconscious level. That's why I often
advise patients to start recording their dreams, because the body cannot
speak except by using symbols.  Although dreams can be difficult to
understand, Claire shows how important they can be in learning vital
information that may not be accessible in other ways.

Meditation is another way of communicating with the inner self.  Someone
once said that prayer is talking, while meditation is listening.
Actually, meditation is a way to temporarily stop listening to the
pressures and distractions of everyday life in order to be attentive to
our deeper thoughts and feelings.  The physical benefits of meditation
have been well documented by many researchers, including Dr.  Herbert
Benson, who showed Claire and many others how to meditate.

More than most of us, Claire Sylvia has experienced the mysterious.
During the course of her exceptional journey, she has been willing to
explore her psyche and to confront feelings that many of us repress.  I
hope you will open both your mind and your heart to her extraordinary
story.

The Deepest Breath SEVERAL YEARS AGO, as I lay dying from a rare and
fatal disease, my chest was sawed open and my heart and lungs were cut
out of me.  Into that hollow, scooped-out space, in a last ditch effort
to save my life, the doctors transplanted the heart and lungs of a young
man who had just died in a motorcycle accident. In a sublime act of
generosity and grace, his family had agreed to offer up this precious
and singular gift to a total stranger.

Within hours of their decision, that young man's lungs were breathing in
my body, while his heart was pumping my blood with a pace and a vitality
I had never known before.  When I awoke from the operation and returned
to life, I assumed that my long journey was finally over.

In fact, it was just beginning.

Before long, I began to feel that I had received more than just new body
parts.  I began to wonder if my transplanted heart and lungs had somehow
arrived with some of their own inclinations and memories.  I had dreams
and experienced changes that seemed to suggest that some aspects of my
donor's spirit and personality now existed within me.

All my life I have been told that despite the protests of poets and the
murmuring of mystics, the human heart is just a pump.

An incredibly important pump, but only a pump, a monotonous, mandatory
machine.  According to this view, which is the accepted one in
contemporary Western medicine, the heart contains no feelings and
carries no wisdom, no knowledge, and no memories.  And if one person's
heart has previously resided in another person's body, that fact has no
particular meaning or implication.

I used to believe these things, but today I know differently.

Perhaps there are other ways to think of the heart.  Maybe some of the
many qualities that have been attributed to the heart over the centuries
are more than metaphorical.  Even today, in our enlightened, scientific
era, we still refer to the heart when we discuss our feelings and our
values.  When love dies, or death strikes, we speak of being
brokenhearted.  We take heart and lose heart all the time.  When we want
to be demonstrative, we wear our heart on our sleeve; when a person is
insensitive, we say he is heartless.  Pure heart, aching heart, soft
heart, valiant heart, noble heart, tender heart, understanding heartthe
list goes on.

Could there possibly be some literal truth to these expressions?  Even
the most conservative cardiologist will acknowledge that the health and
functioning of the heart are affected by certain emotional realities,
including loneliness, depression, and alienation.  And while it is
commonly accepted that the mind and the body are deeply connected, we
don't have nearly as many images or phrases pertaining to, say, the
liver, the pancreas, or even the brain.

When I acquired a new heart, I also acquired a new rhythm, new impulses,
new knowledge, and new questions.  I found my self on a fascinating and
mysterious journey that I hadn't anticipated and wasn't prepared for, a
journey that was occasionally frightening and sometimes euphoric.  This
adventure of discovery, and also of self-discovery, has forced me to
look at life's mysteries in a completely new way.

My journey began with the transplant, or perhaps earlier.  But I didn't
fully understand that I was already on it until five months after the
operation, when I had an unusually vivid dream:

It's a warm summer day.  I'm standing in an open, outside place, a
grassy field.  With me is a grown man who is tall, thin, and wiry, with
sandy-colored hair.  His name is Tim, and I think his last name may be
Leighton, but I'm not sure.  I think of him as Tim L.  We're in a
playful relationship, and we're good friends.

The time has come for me to leave him, to join a performing roup of
acrobats.  I start walking down a path, away from Tim.  Suddenly I turn
around,feelin that something remains unfinished between us.  I walk back
toward him to say goodbye.

Tim watches me as I come closer, and he seems to be pleased that I am
making my way back to him.

We kiss and as we do I inhale him into me.  It feels like the deepest
breath I have ever taken.  And I know at that moment the two of us, Tim
and I, will be together forever.

I awoke from the dream exhilarated, as though I had just taken the
deepest breath of my life.  I also felt that I had integrated the new
heart and lungs within me.

Vivid dreams are not new to me.  I pay close attention to the images
that come to me, and I record them regularly in my journal. Some of my
dreams are enigmatic, a vague and complicated puzzle to be mulled over
later.  But not this one.  Until now, I had thought of my heart and
lungs as having come from an anonymous stranger, an unknown young man
whom I hadn't thought much about.  But when this dream was over,
something had changed.  I woke up knowing really knowing that Tim L. was
my donor and that some parts of his spirit and personality were now in
me.

I was eager to verify this information.  But how?  The transplant
program at YaleNew Haven Hospital, where I received my new heart and
lungs, observed a strict code of confidentiality.  The hospital
officials maintained an ironclad rule that the donor's identity could
never be revealed to the recipient.  The same was true in reverse: the
donor's family could never be told exactly who had received the various
organs they had made available.

what little I did: that my donor was an eighteen-year-old boy, that he
lived in Maine, and that he died on a motorcycle.  I had heard these
things from a nurse shortly after the operation.

The day after the dream, I called Gail Eddy, the transplant coordinator
at Yale-New Haven, who had been enormously helpful to me before, during,
and after the operation.  I knew that Gail couldn't tell me who my donor
was, but perhaps she would be willing to confirm the name of Tim L. from
my dream.  Assuming, of course, that my information was correct.

And at first I thought it was.  When I told Gail about the dream and
asked whether my donor's name was Tim L., there was a momentary pause.

"No, no, you can't know that," Gail finally said.  "I'm not supposed to
discuss this with you.  Please, Claire, let it go.  Even if you succeed
in tracking down the family, you'd just be opening a can of worms."

"What do you mean?"

"You can never predict how the donor's family will respond.

People in these situations have all kinds of unexpected reactions.  If
you're curious about the donor, I don't blame you; I'd be curious too.
But please let it go.  This whole topic is too emotional and too
volatile."

I was disappointed by Gail's response, and a little surprised.

But I respected her judgment and I assured her that I would drop the
subject.

But the subject refused to drop me.

I would gradually learn a lot more about my donor.  And eventually I
would discover that my amazing dream about Tim L.  was more true than I
ever imagined.

First Position I GREW UP with a different sense of self than the one I
live with now.  As a very young child I was part of an extended family
that was close and mostly happy.  My father was a physician, and during
World War II, when he was overseas with the army, we three my mother, my
older sister, Marilyn, and Ilived with my mother's parents in the Bronx.

My grandparents were poor and their apartment was tiny, and had they not
been so welcoming it would have seemed cramped.  My mother, grandmother,
and I shared a bed, sleeping head to toe.  Marilyn slept on a cot, and
my grandfather spent his nights on the living room couch.  It was a warm
and traditional Jewish household, rich in food and good humor, where we
celebrated the Sabbath with Friday night dinners at a table crowded with
relatives.  Although these memories now seem to have emanated from some
other lifetime, they still resonate with stability, engagement, and pure
emotional comfort.

My grandparents, Chana and Sholom, had not always enjoyed such a
peaceful life.  In 1913 they had escaped from Czarist Russia with my
mother, who was then three years old; two boys, my uncles Hy and Lou,
were born later, in New York.  Although my grandparents rarely spoke of
their former lives, I knew they had survived several pogroms, and that
my grandmother had evaded one particularly vicious rampage by hiding in
a barrel.  As a girl I retained a vivid mental image of these two adults
and their small child being pursued by bloodthirsty Cossacks on horses,
literally running to the boat that would carry them to America.

Perhaps it didn't happen exactly that way, but even today, the memory of
my grandparents still brings to mind a series of dangerous episodes and
narrow escapes.

Although my grandparents had been exposed to much sorrow and suffering,
they were kind, compassionate, and incredibly optimistic.  "Money they
couldn't give me," my uncle Lou said years later, "but they were loaded
with hope." Grandma was always reminding us that today's troubles would
pass soon enough, and that, in a phrase she must have uttered a thousand
times, "tomorrow will be better."

She was a tiny woman, while Grandpa, who worked as a paperhanger, was a
big, bald man who sparkled and glistened and looked like a Jewish Mister
Clean.  He had a great sense of humor, especially about his financial
struggles.  "You know, Claire," he would say with his heavy Yiddish
accent, "I'm actually very successful.  I came to this country with
every intention of being a poor man, and you'll notice that I achieved
my goal."

Unlike many couples of their generation, my grandparents were not only
life partners, but true friends as well.  They had long talks in
Yiddish, and while they spoke English to their grandchildren, both my
grandparents and parents reverted to Yiddish when the topic was deemed
inappropriate for younger ears.  Naturally, with such a powerful
incentive, Marilyn and I learned a lot of Yiddish phrases.

In my grandparents' home, dreams were a natural and recur ring topic of
discussion.  This was common among Russian Jewish immigrants; if you had
a dream during the night, you talked about it in the morning.  The
adults would offer each other interpretations , but there was no
psychological component to these conversations.  There were recognized
symbols: if you dreamed X, it meant Y.  There's an adage in the Talmud
that an uninterpreted dream is like an unopened letter; in our family,
you might say, we always read our mail.

When it came to dreams, everyone deferred to my grand mother.  We
thought of her as a bit of a gypsy, because in addition to her fondness
for dreams, she would occasionally foretell the future with a deck of
cards.  Some of her dreams, too, pointed to future events or
possibilities, but others were mundane and even practical.  If a number
appeared to her in the night, she would go down to the candy store the
next day to play that number with a two-cent or a nickel bet.  She
sometimes dreamed about her childhood in Russia, but on that painful
topic she was mostly silent.

Even her health was bound up with dreams.  Grandma almost died in the
flu epidemic of 1918, and she was so weak that my mother and her brother
Hy, who were eight and five, had to spend a year in a loveless and
rat-infested orphanage.  When she recovered, Grandma dreamed about a
mysterious, bearded stranger who held a staff over her head and promised
that from that day on she would never again know sickness.  "Never" is a
long time, but for the next fifteen years she was the picture of health.

Growing up, I learned to pay attention to my own dreams, and to regard
them, at least some of the time, as either true or potentially true;
This applied not only to night dreams, but also to daydreams, hopes,
wishes, and all other expressions of imagination and desire.  If a dream
wasn't literally true when you dreamed it, you could always work very
hard to try to make it true.  I learned to see dreams as a powerful
motivating force that can propel you to overcome enormous obstacles.  Of
course, as my grandmother would have added, it also doesn't hurt to be
lucky.

I wasn't exactly lucky, but I did have a number of experiences that
might be called psychic.  When a woman in our neighbor hood became
pregnant, I knew about it before she told anyone.

I don't know how or why; I just knew.  When an item was lost, I could
often find it.  When I went roller skating with my friends, one popular
contest rewarded those skaters who ended up in a particular corner of
the rink when the music stopped; I often knew which corner it would be,
and even when the music would stop.  These things happen to most people
every now and then; they seemed to happen to me a lot.

Long before I ever heard of Jung, or his idea of synchronicity, I had
concluded that coincidences aren't necessarily random, and that
"accidents" sometimes happen by design.  Events often unfold for a
reason, even when that reason isn't necessarily clear.  Mysterious
forces are at work in the universe that affect our lives in ways we
don't always understand.

During my childhood, I often had the sense of knowing things that
weren't necessarily clear to other people, although I assumed they were.
I was uncomfortable, for example, when any one in our family or our
neighborhood made a disparaging remark about other ethnic or religious
groups.  It wasn't only the bigotry that upset me; I was genuinely
baffled by these comments. As a child, it was clear to me not only that
everyone belonged to the same human family, but that each of us
contained parts and elements of other people.  I also knew that we had
all been alive in previous incarnations.  I was sure, for example, that
my mother had been a Catholic not so long ago and perhaps even a
Catholic who disliked Jews.  This view of the world was so self-evident
to me that I couldn't believe it wasn't known to everyone.  But while
children are especially open and receptive to such ideas, as they get
older they conform to an adult society whose organizing principles, at
least these days, leave little room for metaphysical reflections.

Like my grandmother, I've had powerful and unusual dreams all my life,
and decades later, one dream in particular still haunts me.  A few weeks
after Ira, my first husband, and I were married, Ira's father died.
Artier's body was cremated, and after the funeral we all gathered at his
house in Westchester.  The ashes were in the car, and Ira and his
brothers planned to scatter them the following day in one of their
father's favorite places.  Exhausted after the funeral, I went to sleep
early in Ira's old room with the moonlight shining through the window.
Then I had the dream.

The doorbell rings, and when I run downstairs to answer it, I see the
spirit of Artie.  I am terrified, because I know that Artie's spirit has
returned to select someone who will So with him.  Although I'm not sure
what this means, the prospect of going with Artie to this unknown place
fills me with dread.

Now I am outside the house.  As I watch, Ira's two brothers jump out the
window and disappear.  Then the front door opens and Ira comes out; he
begins walking away, and I follow him.

I awoke from this dream literally trembling with fear, because I thought
Ira and I were supposed to die.  Just then, Ira came bounding into the
room.  Before I could speak, he said, "I don't want to wait until
tomorrow.  I've got to scatter the ashes right now."

"All right," I said, "I'll go with you.  Let me put some clothes on and
we'll get them from the car."

"The ashes aren't in the car," he said.  "I brought them up and put them
right here, under the bed."

Holy Moses!  When I heard that, I couldn't believe it.

Ira and I left the house with Artie's ashes and started walking.

So that's what the dream meant, I thought.  We really were supposed to
go with Artie, but that didn't mean we had to die.  As we scattered his
ashes, I began to breathe easier.  But what an amazing dream.

I concluded that Artie's spirit had contacted me with a message, and
that Ira had obviously received a similar message at exactly the same
time, through some other channel.  Dreams are a common transmitting
device, but there are surely others, even if we don't have names for
them.

Sadly, the years of warmth and security in my grandparents' apartment
came to an early end.  In 1945, when I was five, my father returned from
the war and the four of us moved into our own place.  But we missed the
stabilizing, loving presence of our grandparents, and without them the
family dynamics were very different.

My mother was a troubled woman, who was often unpredictable and
sometimes mean.  Living with her produced so much anxiety that I
sometimes wondered how the only daughter of my affectionate, dependable
grandparents could have turned out as she did.  She was often cranky and
jealous, and she'd lash out at the slightest provocation mostly at my
sister, who, as the older child, bore the brunt of these seemingly
arbitrary eruptions.

I don't have a good explanation for my mother's instability.

It's possible that one of its causes was a terrible frustration from
never having realized her dream of devoting her life to some artistic
pursuit.  She played the piano, and she spoke with pride about having
acted in plays during high school.  Later, when I be came a dancer, the
intensity of her support and her devoted attention to my career
sometimes made me wonder if she wasn't living vicariously through me.

In my adult life my mother and I were finally able to be friends, and
later on, when she was dying, she wanted me at her side.  Mother, I
thought, you brought me into this world and I'm here to see you out.  As
I prayed for her on her deathbed, I also prayed for myself that I would
be able to let go of those negative qualities in her that also belonged
to me.

As a child I often prayed for a different mother a warm and tender woman
who was more like the mothers of my girl friends. These mothers, or so I
imagined, were close to their daughters and openly loving, and would
never dream of yelling at them for no good reason.  I yearned for the
closeness and warmth I had felt with my grandparents, and I longed for
the unconditional love that my mother seemed unable to provide.

At the same time, I also admired her.  She had studied hard to escape
her impoverished childhood, and although her own mother could neither
read nor write, my mother went to college and became a high school
English teacher.  She was bright and capable, with flashes of kindness
and generosity.  She had excellent taste, and loved antiques and
beautiful things.  She had many friends and loved to throw parties,
where she was a beautiful and gracious hostess.  And, like her father,
she had a terrific sense of humor.

Like many troubled individuals, my mother had a way of cutting straight
to the heart of the matter.  She was full of insight, and although she
often muddied up an issue with her negativity, she generally spoke the
truth.  I have no doubt that she loved Marilyn and me, but sadly for all
three of us, she found it far easier to display anger than affection.

My father, fortunately, provided some balance; he was consistent,
caring, and supportive.  Although he constantly tried to appease my
mother, he wasn't strong enough to stand up to her, and was never able
to get her the help she obviously needed.

Marilyn and I appreciated his kindness, but even that led to problems
when my mother became jealous of his relatively uncomplicated
relationship with us.

What made life bearable was our small summer cottage on Swan Lake in the
Catskills, where we spent every summer together with our grandparents.
Dad was the town doctor, and more than one family dinner was interrupted
when some unlucky fisherman came by with a hook embedded in his hand.

Cousins were always dropping in to share meals at our oval red Formica
table with the matching red bench, and for a few weeks each year we were
able to return to happier times.  Even my mother was relatively relaxed
at Swan Lake, but because of a fight she'd had with our next-door
neighbors, Marilyn and I weren't allowed to play with their kids.  But
everything is relative, and Swan Lake was far better than home.  I loved
that place, and I continued going there until well into my twenties.  My
parents eventually sold it, but to this day I still return there in my
dreams.

I responded to my mother's volatility by tuning out.  At dinner I would
sit there quietly, waiting for the inevitable eruption.

The moment the yelling began I would mentally pull down a curtain and
wall myself off, creating a private, secret space that my mother's anger
could not penetrate.  Later, in college, what I appreciated most of all
were the daily meals in the cafeteria.  It wasn't the food, but the
surprising revelation that dinner could be both pleasant and
predictable.

When things became noisy at home, I would imagine myself as part of some
other household.  I thought constantly about growing up and getting out,
as far as possible from all of this abuse and conflict.  At home or in
public, my mother was always on the attack, humiliating my sister and me
in front of our friends.  When I was a teenager, my boyfriends were
afraid to come to the house to take me out.

I followed my own path and became a closet rebel.  I smiled and said yes
to everything, but I did as I pleased.  With Marilyn as the lightning
rod for my mother's anger, I generally got off easy.  My sister covered
for me, and sometimes she even took the blame for my mischief.

When I was a young adult, living on my own, I called my mother to tell
her I was getting married.  Nobody in the family had met Ira, and I
heard later that my mother told her friends that she wasn't even sure
whether Claire's future husband was white.  The fact that my mother
actually wondered about this says a lot about how she perceived me.
Although interracial marriages were extremely rare in those days, she
thought of me as being capable of such a socially daring and rebellious
act.  Ira was white, but my mother's assessment of me was accurate.

Children who are unhappy at home sometimes find redemption at school,
but I didn't.  I couldn't master a subject unless I saw its relevance or
at least found it interesting.  Because Marilyn excelled at school, the
two of us soon became pegged as the smart one and the pretty one.  It
took years before I finally realized that I, too, had brains, and that
Marilyn was good-looking.

Until then, my self-esteem was pretty low.

I also found it hard to make the standard, logical connections that
seemed to come naturally to my classmates.  This may have been a
response to the emotional instability of our home, but every year, for
example, the Christmas school vacation came as a total surprise.  I
didn't expect it, and I couldn't seem to grasp the idea that certain
events occurred at regular, predictable points in the annual cycle.
There wasn't a rounded continuity to my life.

But what really set me apart were my health problems.  At the age of
three I was diagnosed with a congenital heart murmur that I expected to
live with all my life.  "Whatever Claire does," the doctor warned my
parents, "don't let it get too strenuous."

Although I was an active child, my parents worried about my health and
treated me as if I were frail.  I certainly didn't feel frail, although
I suffered from low blood sugar.  At my father's suggestion, I always
carried some candy with me in case I suffered a disorienting attack.  My
condition was a forerunner to diabetes, which ran in our family.

I also had trouble breathing on hot, humid days.  My body would become
dehydrated, and I could practically feel myself losing weight.  Shortly
after Ira and I were married, we traveled in Africa, where I almost died
in Dakar.  It looked like a case of malaria, but what really did me in
was the incredible humidity.

As a child I came down with a great many colds and sore throats, which
usually developed into bronchitis or the flu.

While I didn't see myself as sickly, I didn't feel entirely healthy,
either.  And even when I felt fine, I was always aware of a serious
imperfection at the center of my being.

Because of my heart, I wasn't allowed to enter races or participate in
any rigorous activities.  Marilyn was given the difficult job of looking
out for mean assignment that placed an enormous and unfair burden on her
because I was often rambunctious and uncooperative.

Although Marilyn knew that my heart murmur was real, she always
suspected that my many lesser ailments might be caused by a desire for
more attention.  I hated these insinuations, but I now believe that my
sister was at least partly right.  While I wasn't faking, I definitely
experienced some secondary gains from being sick.  I was happy to miss
school, but a more important consideration was that my normally
unpredictable mother became loving and attentive during my illnesses,
and would bring me baked potatoes with butter and sour cream.  (Years
later I would do the same for my own daughter.)  Even after I was
married, whenever I was sick my mother would either come to see me or
she'd send my father.

During this mostly unhappy childhood, dance was my salvation, my
rescuer, my antidote to depression.  I started dancing at the age of
eight, and as soon as I had found my calling, I fell under its spell
forever.  I believed I was born to dance, and I can still re member
sitting on the radiator in my bedroom and looking out the window at the
night sky: I found a star and made a wish that I would become a great
ballerina.  I also promised myself that one way or another, dance would
always be part of my life.  And it has been through several decades, in
sickness and in health.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, in high school and college,
dance was a way out of my misery, a powerful and spiritual alternative
to our contentious family life.  No matter what was happening at home, I
could leave it behind the moment the music started.  Some dancers feel
they become another person when they dance, but I felt I was expressing
the best parts of myself the real me, the creative me, the person I was
meant to become.  I often became lost in the music, although it might be
more accurate to say that I was lost before the music, and that dancing
was more like being found.

When I was ten, the dance teacher at summer camp selected me for the
lead role in Snow White, whereupon I announced to my parents that I was
going to become a ballerina.  Impossible, they said.  A girl with a
heart problem can't be a dancer!  But I was already hooked, and their
anxieties about my health only strengthened my resolve.  Dance now took
on the additional glow of forbidden fruit and became part of my
rebellion.  Finally, after I begged and pleaded, they allowed me to take
ballet lessons on Saturdays.  One class led to another, and it soon
became clear that I had a passion, possibly even a gift.

When I was eleven, my ballet teacher took me to see a performance of
Giselle, which epitomizes romantic ballet.  Giselle is the story of a
young girl who is determined to dance, but whose mother tries to prevent
her from realizing her dream because of Giselle's weak heart.

At least that's what I thought Giselle was about.  Later, when I saw it
again as an adult, I realized that for decades I had been carrying
around a distorted version of the story, and that Giselle's heart
problem is one minor detail in a long and elaborate story.  Seeing
Giselle as a young girl's struggle to dance in spite of her heart
condition is a little like viewing Hamlet as the story of a young man
who kills his girlfriend's loquacious father:

it's factual, but not really true.  I obviously needed to see Giselle as
the playing out of my own struggle.

A few months later, my parents took me to a movie that rein forced the
dramatic impact of Giselle.  Limelight, one of Charlie Chaplin's last
films, portrays an unlikely romance between an aging clown (Chaplin) and
a beautiful young ballerina (Claire Bloom).  As the film opens, the
dancer has just tried to kill her self. What drove her to such despair?
She'd had a serious illness that prevented her from dancing!  Limelight
is an enormously affecting movie, and when it was over I burst into
tears.  To this day I can't watch it without crying.

Although I didn't consciously realize this at the time, Giselle and
Limelight were variations on the same theme: the near-death and
subsequent resurrection of a young, dark-haired dancer.  I took this
idea to heart, and saw it as my story and my destiny.  As things turned
out, it really was my story, although at the time I couldn't begin to
imagine that years later, after nearly dying, I would almost literally
be resurrected into a new life in which I really would dance again.
Throughout my youth, I assumed that my heart murmur was the biggest
obstacle I would ever have to face.  Little did I know!

As I continued taking dance classes with no detrimental effects on my
health, my parents became more flexible.  They were proud of my
successes, and over time their apprehensions about my heart began to
fade.  I did my part by always restraining myself a little and holding
back.  I was grateful to be dancing at all, and I didn't want to risk
any further damage to my heart.

As a teenager I faced another barrier when I quickly shot up to my
current height of five feet, six inches.  This wouldn't be a problem
today, but during the 1950s I was considered slightly too tall for
ballet.  I was shattered, but when one of my friends suggested that I
look into modern dance, I took her advice.  To my surprise, I soon came
to love this completely different style of dance, which struck me as
less constrained, more expressive, and more emotionally satisfying than
ballet.  And while I have always appreciated classical dance, I soon
realized that for me, with my artistic drive and rebellious spirit,
modern was a better choice.

In high school I took classes at Juilliard with Pearl Lang, a disciple
of Martha Graham, who invited me to join her company for a Hanukkah
festival performance at Madison Square Gar den.  I could hardly believe
I was working with real dancers in a professional company!  I even
received a modest check, which meant that I, too, could now consider
myself a professional.

I pushed ahead and won a scholarship, which I used for a summer program
at the Connecticut College for Women.  Here I was fortunate enough to
study with some of the leading figures in modern dance, including Jose
Limon, Lucas Hoving, and Al win Nikolais.  I even took a class with
Martha Graham, and one memorable morning she slapped my hip into proper
position while demonstrating a contraction.  This was a big deal: Martha
Graham was regarded as a deity, and it was considered a great honor to
be touched by her.

After high school I was accepted at Adelphi College (now Adelphi
University) on Long Island, one of the few schools to offer a dance
major in the 1 950s.  Adelphi was close enough to Manhattan that
students could easily attend Broadway shows, dance classes, and
auditions.  My first audition, an open call for the film version of West
Side Story, was conducted by Jerome Robbins himself.  Hundreds of
dancers tried out for two places, and Mr.  Robbins had me dancing all
day.  Finally, when only four of us were left, he politely sent me home.

I was crushed not to be chosen after coming so close, but on the train
back to school I was able to take a longer view.  Don't feel too badly,
I told myself.  You did great, and this was just your first audition.
There will be many others.

But there weren't.  In the spring of my senior year, my feet suddenly
swelled up for no apparent reason.  I was diagnosed with
glomerulonephritis, a kidney disease.  Although I felt no pain, I had to
spend a month at Mt.  Sinai Hospital, leaving only to attend my senior
prom and graduation.  When I was released, the doctor took me aside and
gave me the terrible news: I could never dance again.  And in case that
wasn't awful enough, it would be dangerous for me to have children.

I was devastated.  A few weeks later, when I looked up
glomerulonephritis in a medical book, I was shocked to see that people
often died from it.  My parents, who had finally over come their fears
about my heart murmur, now insisted that I move back home after
graduation so they could take care of me.

But I wouldn't hear of it.  Now that my life was pretty much ruined, the
last thing I wanted was to return home.  Instead, I rented an apartment
with a friend on Manhattan's Upper West Side and reassured my parents
that I wouldn't dance.

It was terribly hard, but I really did stop.  Giving up my dream was
excruciating, but for all my rebelliousness, in those days I still
believed doctors were God-like.  It didn't even occur to me to challenge
their wisdom.

Not dancing was enormously painful for me, and I soon found that
watching other dancers was just as bad.  I remembered clearly what every
step and motion felt like, and to see these movements being performed
without being able to do them myself was more than I could endure.  Like
a recovering alcoholic, I found it better to separate myself entirely
from my previous pleasure: I stopped going to dance events and avoided
any music that reminded me of dancing My life's dream had dissolved, and
everything I had wished for was over.

What new self had I become, now that my body and spirit were no longer
dancing?  I wasn't sure, except that this new me had no discipline, no
goal, no calling, no plan, no dream.  I lived for the moment: I drank, I
smoked, and I ate without limits.  By the standards of a dancer, I soon
became fat and out of shape.

For years my body had defined my dream and put it into practice; I
didn't realize that my purest essence, the part of me that had been
expressed through dance, would always be there.

When I stopped dancing, I thought it was gone forever.

For all my disappointment, however, I didn't succumb to despair or give
up on life.  I was determined to find my own way, whatever that turned
out to be, and I loved being on my own and living in Manhattan. Although
I quickly lost touch with most of my college friends, who had all been
dancers, I made new friends who worked in business, advertising, or the
theater.

I drifted in and out of several jobs, including a secretarial position
and a stint as a hostess in a restaurant.  Because I had studied English
in college, I was able to find a job in publishing

sort of.  Okay, so Hairdo Magazine wasn't exactly Alfred A. Knopf, but
sometimes even the wrong job can lead to good things.  One day a new
girl showed up in the office, a music and dance enthusiast whose
boyfriend was a musician with the Alvin Alley Dance Company. Maureen
Meloy lived a block from me, and when I told her about my previous life,
she encouraged me to join a gym and start working out, and didn't let up
on me until I did.  Soon she was pushing copies of Variety under my nose
and urging me to start dancing again.

"But I- can't," I explained for the umpteenth time.  "I was sick,
remember?"

"That was then," she said.  "Maybe things have changed." She handed me a
notice and said, "Read this."

Helen Tamiris and Daniel Nagrin, two well-known names in the small world
of modern dance, were seeking another member for their company. Although
I was busy on the day of the audition, Maureen insisted that I call to
ask if they would see me at another time.

 How brazen, I thought, but Maureen was so convincing that I called.  To
my amazement, Tamiris and Nagrin scheduled a private audition in their
apartment and studio on West 72nd Street.  Nervous, overweight, and
still smoking, I danced for them and gave them my resume.  Fortunately,
the audition in included plenty of improvisation, which was always my
strength.

Even so, I left the studio with few expectations.  "We'll be in touch,"
I was told.  Sure, I thought.

Two weeks later, when I had all but given up, Daniel Nagrin called and
offered me the job.  I couldn't believe it!  The next morning I went
into work and gave Maureen an enormous hug.

We soon lost touch, but I still wonder about this woman who appeared out
of nowhere and completely changed my life.  Actually, Maureen was one of
several people who seem to have been sent to me over the years, as if by
some higher power, to move my life along in an important new direction.
I don't pretend to understand this mysterious phenomenon, except that I
know it happens to some people, and I'm profoundly grateful that it
happened to me.

I promptly quit my job at Hairdo and began a six-week training program
as the eighth and newest member of the Tamiris Nagrin company.  "We were
right to hire you," Daniel Nagrin told me after two weeks.  "Soon we'll
be giving you solos.  I'm amazed at how quickly you've stopped smoking,
lost weight, and improved your skills."

It wasn't amazing to me; all I needed was the incentive.  I was
dedicated and devoted to dance, and when this incredible opportunity
opened up, I rushed to embrace it.

Before the training program began, I had checked in with my kidney
doctor at Mt.  Sinai.  With this opportunity in my life, I probably
would have resumed dancing in any case, no matter what the risks.  But
to my astonishment, the doctor told me that my kidneys had healed, and
that after four years I could finally stop taking the medications.  I
could dance!

"This is really incredible," he said.  "I wish I could tell you why you
got better, but I have no idea." He showed me the medical records of
another patient, a young boy who had come to the hospital with
glomerulonephritis around the same time I had.

"Look at this," he said.  "Your numbers are identical, and you both had
the same prognosis.  But today you're dancing, this poor kid is dying,
and I can't explain why."

I couldn't either.  It certainly wasn't the medications, which were
never intended as a cure.  All I know is that these things happen, and
that physical healing sometimes takes place in a realm far removed from
the treatments and cures of conventional medicine.  Perhaps, in this
case, my body cured itself.  But why?  It could have been my strong will
to live, although the boy who was dying may have had an equally strong
will.  Perhaps I got better because it just wasn't my time to die, and
God had something else in mind for me.  I simply don't know the answer.

I went on to dance, first with Tamiris and Nagrin, and then with Gloria
Contraras in her ballet company.  I spent a year with Gloria in Mexico,
and then returned to America, where I performed with several companies
and taught dance at various schools and colleges.  I married Ira, and
although the kidney doctor had warned me that getting pregnant could be
very dangerous, I decided to take the risk.  I wanted to be a mother as
much as I wanted to dance.  After a wonderful pregnancy, my two great
loves came together: Amara was born in 1972, and before she could even
walk we were already dancing together.

Bad News FOR SEVERAL YEARS until I married Ira, I performed with various
modern dance companies and taught dance at Hunter College High School
and Barnard College.  Shortly after our wedding, I gave it all up when
Ira and I decided to travel through Europe and Africa.  We ended up
living in Spain for a year, where I studied flamenco dance and Ira, a
photographer, worked on his portfolio.

After two years abroad, we returned to New York and settled down to
begin a family.  Just before Amara was born, we moved to a house
overlooking the ocean in Hull, Massachusetts, on Boston's south shore.
By then, however, our marriage was coming apart, and two years later, we
divorced.  Ira remained an attentive father, and we became friends in a
way that hadn't seemed possible while we were married.

A year after my divorce a new man came into my life.  David and I were
together for ten years, including three years of marriage. During this
period I set up our local arts council, opened a dance school, and
performed in several regional productions.

Unfortunately this marriage, too, came to an end.  Apparently I wasn't
very good at marriage, but while I became shy about matrimony, I didn't
give up on romance.

Which brings me to the spring of 1985, when I was forty-five and my life
was going well.  I was in love again would I never learn?and was
finishing my first year as a drama teacher at Brookline High, a
wonderful school near Boston where the students were eager to learn.
Amara and I were now living in Brookline, where I rented an apartment.
But I still owned the house in Hull, which we used on weekends and in
the summer.

Over breakfast on a pleasant Sunday morning, I picked up Parade
magazine, which comes with the Sunday Boston Globe.  Cher was on the
cover.  Flipping through it, I noticed an attractive, smiling woman who
looked to be roughly my age.  Her name was Mary Gohlke, and I read that
four years earlier she had been the first person to survive a combined
heart-lung transplant.  I couldn't imagine it, so I started reading her
story, which began when she had started feeling tired and short of
breath for no apparent reason.  After running some tests, her doctor
said, "You have a very serious disease called primary pulmonary hyper
tension."

When I read those words I nearly fell off my chair.  Eighteen months
earlier I had been given the very same diagnosis by my own doctor, who
had definitely not used the phrase "very serious disease." I had gone to
see him after feeling tired on the dance floor and slightly winded when
I climbed stairs.  At first I had ignored these symptoms.  It's middle
age, I told myself.  You're out of shape.  Get some exercise.  Lose a
few pounds.

But at a deeper level I was concerned.  Why was I suddenly so tired when
I had been-dancing for years, through countless grueling rehearsals,
exhausting classes, and strenuous performances?  Just a few years
earlier, at the relatively old age of thirty-nine, I had performed the
demanding lead dance role in a local production of Oklahoma!  But now,
for some reason, I was always out of breath.

Dr.  Sage, my cardiologist, found that the right side of my heart was
enlarged.  After further tests, he said I had primary pulmonary
hypertension.  He didn't elaborate, and at the time although it seems
inconceivable to me now I didn't ask.  But if he had used the word
"serious," or even "disease," I would have remembered.

"The good news is that you won't be needing surgery," he had said.  "We
can control this problem through medication."

Although the medication didn't help much, I thought of my self as having
a condition rather than an illness.  Incredibly, it hadn't occurred to
me to do any research about primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH)or even
to look it up in a medical book.  But now, in Parade magazine, I read
that PPH closes the blood vessels in the lungs, which in turn forces the
heart to work harder.

As I read on, I learned something else that hit me like a gigantic
hammer: PPH was more than a serious disease.  It was terminal.

Oh my God.

I said nothing to Amara.  She was thirteen, which was certainly old
enough to understand my anxiety.  But why alarm her now?  Maybe I was
jumping to conclusions.  But when I went to see Dr.  Sage, he confirmed
that what I had read about PPH was correct.  He explained that the word
"primary" meant that this disease had no known cause; it also had no
known cure.  The reason he hadn't told me these things before, he said,
was that he hadn't wanted to alarm me.  Besides, my case was fairly
mild.

I asked Dr.  Sage if I should be thinking about a heart-lung transplant.
Although I felt a little foolish asking about such a drastic solution, I
had no intention of dying in my forties.  And from what little I had
just learned about PPH, there didn't seem to be much middle ground
between doing nothing and taking extreme measures.  People say their
priorities become clear during a crisis, and when I learned the truth
about my illness, my priorities were so clear you could see through
them.  I wanted to live, and I wanted Amara to continue to have a
mother.

"Fortunately," the doctor said, "you're still in good health.

Later on, if things change, I suppose a transplant might be your ace in
the hole."

It gave me a shiver to hear this cautious, measured man acknowledge that
such a terrifying procedure might someday be come necessary.  This was
crazy!  A week ago I didn't even know I was sick, and now, suddenly, I
was talking with my doctor about the possibility of receiving a new
heart and lungs.  It boggled the mind.

As our conversation drew to a close, something clicked in my brain.
Although I was only dimly aware of it at the time, I know now that a
fundamental change occurred in my consciousness that day.  I realized
that ignorance about PPH was doing me no good, and that Dr.  Sage's
feel-good approach was discouraging me from taking control of my health.
I would continue to seek the advice of doctors, but this illness was my
problem and my responsibility .  I would start by learning everything I
could about it.

Had Dr.  Sage been wrong not to disclose the whole truth about my
illness?  Today, the question seems more complicated than I once
believed.  On one level, yes; he certainly should have told me the full
story right away.  At the same time, it's simplistic and a little too
convenient to blame the doctor in this case.

Physicians are influenced as much by their patients as by their
training, and most patients would rather leave the important decisions
to an omnipotent father figure.

I used to be one of those patients.  Dr.  Sage had shielded me from the
truth not only with the best of intentions, but also because I, as the
passive, acquiescent patient, had invited him to do so.  Now, as I
geared up to save my own life, I had to become less of a patientless
patient, you might say and more of a consumer.  I had been thrust into
battle, and it was time to start fighting.

But that's easier said than done.  For all my determination to learn
about PPH, I found it enormously difficult to move ahead.

I was frightened, and what little I knew about this disease was bad
enough; I wasn't all that eager to learn more.  Ignorance wasn't bliss,
exactly, but as a first cousin to denial, it seemed to offer a little
comfort.  Maybe the bad news could wait a little longer.

But when I saw myself backsliding, I pushed forward.  Fear is
understandable, I told myself, but I can't give in to it.  I have to
push through the fear.  Establish some control.  I have a terrible
disease, and before I can figure out what to do, I need as much
information as possible.  This isn't cancer or heart disease, I realized
, where a patient can afford to close her eyes a little because the
doctors have plenty of experience with these problems.

PPH was so rare that most doctors knew nothing about it.  My internist
had never even seen a patient who had it, and I soon learned why: this
disease strikes one person in a million.  No wonder my internist
referred me to a pulmonary specialist.

I kept hoping the specialist would tell me that Dr.  Sage had made an
honest mistake, and that I had something that looked a lot like PPH but
was far less serious.  But the specialist confirmed the diagnosis and
recommended that I take an aspirin a day as a blood thinner.  This was
really depressing, and it seemed to symbolize the pathetic weakness of
my arsenal.  Here I was with a fatal disease, and the best I could do
was to take one lousy aspirin?

I called the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and asked for
everything they had about PPH.  I also bought a copy of Mary Gohlke's
book, I'll Take Tomorrow.  As I feared, it provided a far more harrowing
account of PPH than the brief and relatively sanitized excerpt I had
read in Parade.  More than once, I noticed that my hand was trembling as
I turned the page.  How could I ever cope with all the physical and
emotional problems that Mary described in such frightening and vivid
detail?

The breathing problems were bad enough, but it was the emotional pain
that really got to me.  I was crying as I read how Mary's husband had
reached across the breakfast table, taken her hand, and gently asked
where she wanted to be buried.  Or when she tearfully explained to her
teenage son that she was dying. Would I soon need to have a similar
conversation with Amara?  So far I hadn't said much about my illness,
and she hadn't asked.  But sooner or later I'd have to tell her.  Where
would I find the strength?

To some extent, I had already found it.  Although parts of Mary's book
were frightening, I was inspired by her courage, and by how she took
charge of her own diminishing life.  Her doctors had tried to discourage
her from seeking the transplant because the operation was experimental
and dangerous.  And it was both, no question about it.  But Mary had
decided that a risky operation was still better than a slow and painful
death, and I felt the same way.

Now, at least, I had a role model, a pioneer who had been through this
illness and had survived.  As long as Mary Gohlke was alive, PPH no
longer had a perfect record.  Now there was a precedent, and a reason to
hope.

When I finished the book I actually called the author on the phone.  I
had never done this before, but Mary lived in Phoenix, her number was
listed, and I dialed it.  It was hard to believe, but moments after
reading a book that had already changed my life, I was speaking to the
author.

Or not speaking, to be precise, because when she said"Hello?"

and I said, "Mary Gohlke?" and she said, "Yes"that's all it took: I
burst into tears.  I tried to explain why I was calling, which was
difficult because I didn't really know why.  I just wanted to hear her
voice, which would mean she was still alive, which would mean that maybe
I, too, could survive.

"It's all right," she said.  "I wrote the book for you, and for others
who are going through this frightening and lonely time.  I'll give you
some advice.  Be positive, because an optimistic attitude can help your
immune system.  Set a goal for each day

even if there are days when your goal is nothing more than staying alive
until tomorrow.  Find the strength to keep going, and never give up."

I listened carefully, knowing that I might soon be needing this advice.
Meanwhile, I studied the information that arrived from Bethesda every
grim word of it.  The bottom line, as I already knew, was that PPH is
incurable.  It weakens the muscles in the pulmonary artery and its
branches until high blood pres sure in the lungs leads to failure in the
right side of the heart.

I also learned that PPH is often difficult to diagnose, which meant, I
imagined, that things could have been even worse.  For whatever it might
be worth, Dr.  Sage had detected it early.

According to the literature, the progression of PPH differed for each
person.  Dr.  Sage had mentioned this, but he had neglected to tell me
that even so, almost everybody with PPH had one thing in common.  Within
three to five years, they were dead.

Over the next few weeks, my symptoms grew noticeably worse.  As the
summer heat grew stronger, the tiredness I had been feeling during the
school year became more intense.  On bad days, when I woke up in the
morning it took all my energy just to wash my face and brush my teeth.
Then, exhausted, I'd have to return to bed.

Amara was away at camp, but I was grateful for my boyfriend, Alan, who
was taking good care of me.  Alan looked in on me of ten.  I could see
how difficult it was becoming for him to watch me turn into a pale
shadow of the vigorous, energetic woman he had known for several years.
As August began, my body be came harder and harder to lug around.  What
about my teaching, which was scheduled to resume after Labor Day?  This
was the best job I'd ever had, and I couldn't wait for the school year
to begin.  But would I be strong enough to go back?

I wasn't.  The school administration was wonderful: they assured me that
the job was mine whenever I was well enough to return, and they even
paid me my salary.  I was astonished and grateful to be treated so well
after only one year on the job.

When I looked back on the previous year, it was hard to believe how
thoroughly I had ignored and denied the true state of my health.
Although I felt increasingly worn down as the months went by, I
pretended that nothing was wrong.  In the spring, when I climbed the
stairs on my way to the cafeteria, I often felt that I was turning into
a younger version of my grand mother at the end of her life.  "'S'no
good, 's'no good," she would tell me as she slowly made her way up the
rickety wooden stairs to her apartment, while I followed close behind,
helping her schlep those heavy bundles of groceries.  She seemed so old,
this frail little woman whom I loved so much, and now, finally, I
understood.  I was only in my forties, but I understood.  'S'no good,
Grandma.  'S'no good.

I tried to mask my fatigue.  I didn't want anyone to know how weak I was
feeling, and that included me.  When other teachers were around, I'd
make excuses.  "Go ahead," I'd tell them.  "I'm looking for something."
Then I'd rummage through my bag until my colleagues were out of sight.

During the fall semester I had sat on the floor to lead the students in
their warm-up exercises, but by the spring I couldn't even open or close
the windows.  We were preparing a production of Pippin, and my
codirector told me later that he thought I was slacking off and acting
like a princess.

One day at rehearsal I was watching a dance scene I had choreographed
when-I noticed a step that looked wrong.  I was so focused on the play
that I forgot my limitations and bounded up the three steps to the
stage.  As I stood there panting and feeling as if I were about to
collapse, the students became concerned. "Claire, are you all right?"

"Yeah, sure, just give me a minute."

Still, nobody knew.  When the school day was over, I drove home and
collapsed on my bed.  Amara was out playing basket ball, and a few
minutes later she bounced into the apartment all flushed with fresh air
and youth.  I remember feeling painfully aware of the contrast between
my daughter, in the flush of life, and my own, prematurely old body.

Sometimes I was jealous of the students and teachers around i me, who
seemed to be flying up the stairs.  But I continued to guard my secret
because working in this school was exciting and inspirational.  I was
teaching a new, experimental course on how ] to relieve stress through
meditation and other techniques.  My plan was to introduce the kinds of
practical, real-life lessons I wished I could have learned in my own
high school, and the kids were responding with enormous enthusiasm.  It
made sense that students in a high-powered, ambitious high school would
welcome opportunities and techniques to reduce stress, and they seemed
delighted to learn about stretching, yoga, meditation, and other ways of
clearing their minds.

In September, I called Dr.  Sage to report that my symptoms had become
worse.  He told me to come in for more tests, including a heart
catheterization, an unpleasant procedure in which a tiny tube is
threaded through one of your veins and is then pushed through all the
way to your heart.  Because you're given a local anesthetic, it's
usually not painful.  But for me it's always a creepy feeling when that
catheter snakes its way through my body; it makes me feel terribly
vulnerable.  Unfortunately, there is no other way to take a precise
reading of the blood pressures in the right side of the heart and the
pulmonary artery.

I'd had this procedure done once before, back when Dr.  Sage first
determined that I had PPH.  Now, as I gloomily looked ahead to my second
catheterization, I remembered what I had learned from Dr.  Herbert
Benson, who had helped me through the first one.  When I had told him
how frightened I was, he encouraged me to make a mental effort to
separate myself from the procedure.  "You can actually watch it on a
monitor," he told me.  "While they're doing the catheterization, try to
imagine yourself on another plane, looking down on the scene from above
and thinking, isn't this interesting." I tried it, and it definitely
helped.

I had met Dr.  Benson in 1974, when I developed high blood pressure
after Ira and I were divorced.  I was on medication, but I didn't like
the idea of taking a powerful drug and staying on it for the rest of my
life.  There had to be a more natural way to solve this problem,
although I couldn't quite imagine what that might be.

As it happened, Herb Benson had recently been written up in The New York
Times for his innovative work in using relaxation techniques to treat
physical disorders such as migraines, irregular heartbeats, and,
especially, high blood pressure.  I made an appointment, and during that
initial visit, in the course of about ten minutes, Dr.  Benson taught me
how to meditate.

I don't mean to sound flip about this, because a ten-minute course in
meditation might sound simplistic.  But Benson had effectively taken the
main ideas of Transcendental Meditation and reduced them to their
essentials: Sit quietly in a regular place where you won't be disturbed.
Close your eyes.  Relax all your muscles, starting at your feet and
progressing up to your head.

Inhale through your nose, breathe out through your mouth, and on every
out breath silently say a special word or a brief prayer.

(Benson suggested the word "one," which I still use.  ) Sit like that
for twenty minutes.  When distracting thoughts float by and they
invariably will gently let them go and focus on your breathing.

There's a tendency to make meditation seem more difficult and mysterious
than it really is, although for some people, I realize, it is difficult.
I began meditating twice a day, and within a month my blood pressure had
fallen so dramatically that I was able to cut my medication in half.*

Why did meditation work so well for me?  First, I had a powerful
incentive to succeed: my health depended on it.  Second, as a dancer I'd
had plenty of practice in maintaining focus and concentration, and in
enlisting the powers of my mind to control my body.  Finally, when Amara
was born I had gone through natural childbirth, with its emphasis on
concentrated, controlled breathing.  I spent sixteen hours in labor, and
next to that, believe me, a little meditation isn't all that difficult.

* I was one of many patients who lowered their blood pressure through
meditation as part of a research project that became the basis of Dr.
Benson's 1975 book, The Relaxation Response.

I have now been meditating every morning for over twenty years, and
today I can't imagine life without it.  In addition to helping me deal
with stress, the clarity of mind that meditation produces often leads me
to solve problems that have been weighing on me, even when I haven't
been fully aware of them.

As I feared, the results of my second catheterization were grim:

my pulmonary pressure had more than doubled.  "Your illness is
progressing rapidly," said Dr.  Sage, "and I'm going to write to John
Hopkins to ask if they'll see you for an evaluation."

"You mean for a transplant?"

"Yes."

I sighed.  I knew that Hopkins was one of only three medical centers in
the country that performed heart-lung transplants.  If this optimist was
thinking about a transplant, then I was really in trouble.

"Meanwhile, we'll put you on a blood thinner, and you'll probably be
needing oxygen."

Which was his way of saying, You're dying, and you don't have much time
left.

I had only one card left to play, and it looked like a long shot.

Marilyn's husband, Mort, was a doctor in New York.  He had been reading
up on PPH, and he urged me to ask my doctor for a calcium channel
blocker.  It might not help, he admitted, but in some cases this
medication can improve the heart's ability to pump blood.  Dr.  Sage was
skeptical, but when I pressed him, he reluctantly wrote out a
prescription for a drug called Procardia.

Now came the hardest part of all.  I had to check out of the hospital,
return home, and find some way to tell Amara I was dying.  Because she
had been away at camp most of the summer, she didn't really know how
serious my condition was.  Nothing could have prepared me for this
agonizing moment, but I couldn't postpone it any longer.

Amara and I had always been close; even as a small child, she always had
a part in whatever production I was choreographing at the time.  But
dance wasn't our only deep connection.  Once, when she was younger, she
ran into my room in the middle of the night to tell me about a
particularly frightening dream.  As she started talking, I started
filling in details before she could say them.  It was hard for either of
us to believe, but we had both had the same dream at the same time.

And now we were about to share the same nightmare.

When I got home from the hospital I went straight to her bedroom.  As we
sat together on her white down comforter, I held Amara's hand and told
her plainly what Dr.  Sage had said.

It was possible, I said, that I might qualify for a heart and lungs
transplant, but that wasn't something we could count on.  Even if I was
accepted, the waiting list was very long because there were always more
people who needed organs than there were donors.

When it comes to showing our emotions, Amara and I have always been very
different.  Even before my illness, she rarely wanted to talk about how
she was feeling.  When I told her what was going on, she kept her
feelings to herself, and spent the next two days in her bedroom.  I
didn't actually see her crying, but her eyes were pink and puffy.  I was
crying for both of us

for Amara, who was too young to have to endure this terrible burden, and
also for myself.

I had known for a while that I wasn't going to live to a ripe old age.
But this latest news was devastating.  More than anything, I wanted to
hang on until Amara graduated.  She had just started at Brookline High,
although she hadn't much liked the idea of being in a school where her
mother was teaching.  We had laughed about this, and I had promised my
daughter that I would go to great lengths to avoid embarrassing her in
school.  But now that was no longer an issue. Tomorrow I would call my
supervisor and explain that I wasn't sure I would ever be healthy enough
to return.

I felt so helpless.  Please, God, don't let me die!  And please protect
Amara, who means more to me than my own life.  Can you possibly keep me
alive until she graduates?

Dr.  Sage had promised to contact Johns Hopkins, and I hoped they would
ask me to come down for an evaluation.  But in my current condition it
was hard to imagine even leaving the house, let alone flying to
Baltimore.  Dr.  Sage had told me to arrange for regular deliveries of
oxygen.  I was also supposed to get a prescription filled for the blood
thinner, and another one for the medication that Mort had recommended.
But all of that would have to wait until the morning.  Right now I was
too exhausted and too depressed to even think about it.

Alan filled both prescriptions the next day, and I took my first dose of
Procardia.  I'm always leery of new medications, because I tend to react
strongly to even a tiny dose.  Although I imagined I had little to lose
by trying Procardia, I was still frightened.

Half an hour after taking that first pill, I got up and sat in a chair,
expecting to be gasping for breath.  But nothing happened.

I walked into the kitchen, again waiting for the inevitable shortness of
breath.  And again, nothing.

It was astounding!  The change was so abrupt and so dramatic that I half
feared I was dreaming.  After taking the second pill, I stood by the
window and looked down at the street.  A young couple was walking
together, and a boy ran past them.  For the first time in months, I
wasn't jealous.  I watched the boy and I wasn't in awe of his youth.

This was real!  I was starting to feel like a whole person again, like a
child learning to walk.  I didn't need the oxygen, and I didn't take the
blood thinner.  Over the next couple of weeks I regained most of my
strength.  I still had trouble climbing stairs, but nothing like before.
Once again, I started going out in the world.  And amazingly, I
experienced no side effects.

But I also knew that I wasn't cured.  Mort had warned me that even if
the Procardia worked, it was only a temporary solution.

At some point the drug would lose its efficacy.  I understood that, but
I was so grateful not to be actively dying that I almost didn't care.

Suddenly, I had a little breathing room

so to speak.  The enemy had been driven back, at least for the moment,
which allowed me to fortify myself against the next assault.  I tried to
be optimistic, but I was fully aware that my new miracle drug wouldn't
last forever.  And neither would I.

So now I had a few extra months, or maybe even a couple of years. Beyond
that, who knew?  My hope, of course, was that somebody would discover a
cure for PPH.  But I was also realis tic.  I didn't know what the future
would bring, but I had a pretty good idea.  Which is why I was so
grateful for this unexpected reprieve, this gift of a little more time.
The challenge was to use it wisely.

THE FIRST THING I did was find a new doctor.  Not only did I need a
pulmonary specialist, but Dr.  Sage was clearly too conservative for me.
I told him so in a letter, in which I also described the extraordinary
benefits I was receiving from Procar dia.  I refrained from adding that
I was angry at him for his skepticism about the drug, and for not having
informed me earlier that I had a serious and fatal disease.  While he
wasn't the right doctor for me, I genuinely liked the man and believed
he had acted in good faith.

Changing doctors was a start, but I wanted to go further.

What I was seeking, I now realized, was more than any physician could
reasonably be expected to provide.  I understood intuitively, if not yet
intellectually, that the world of conventional medicine was simply too
narrow for the questions and issues I was now facing.  While I needed
all the medical expertise I could find, I was also looking-for somebody
who could help me, both emotionally and spiritually, prepare for my own
death.

One thing was clear: that person certainly wasn't the detached
psychotherapist I had been seeing in recent months to deal with my
mother's death and my second divorce.  He had come highly recommended,
and for a while he had been helpful, but only (and ironically) until I
really needed him.  When I told him I was dying, his response to this
devastating news was swift, mechanical, and almost robotic.  As always,
he was sitting behind a huge desk that concealed most of his body and
that now seemed to symbolize the considerable distance between us.

"Oh, yes," he said when I told him the gloomy results and depressing
implications of my recent tests.  "Well, now, at this point you can
expect to go through five distinct stages.  In the first stage .  .  ."

Was he serious?  I had just told him I was dying, and he wanted to
recite the five stages of grief!  No thanks; I could get that from a
book!  I had vaguely known that there wasn't much emotional connection
between us, or a great deal of empathy emanating from him.  But now it
was painfully clear that he couldn't help me deal with my own mortality,
the mother of all issues.  I quickly ended the relationship.

For some time I had been hearing about a New Age therapist who
specialized in treating clients with life-threatening illnesses, and who
practiced his own blend of psychotherapy and spirituality. Rick Pisani,
who had a medical degree and was trained as a conventional psychiatrist,
had decided early in his career that he was more interested in holistic
and alternative treatments.

While I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for, this man sounded
promising, and I made an appointment to see him.

His office was on the second floor of a big old Victorian home.  The
house had plenty of warmth and character, with rich wood paneling on the
walls and Oriental rugs on the floors.  I had trouble getting up the
long flight of stairs that led to his office, but when I made it to the
top I immediately liked this warmhearted, kind-looking man with a trim
beard, graying hair, and a most expressive face.  And I noticed
immediately that the chairs in his comfortable office faced each other,
with no desk or table between them.  I felt at home here, which made me
optimistic about his ability to help me I quickly filled him in on the
key events of my illness.  "At some point during the next year or two,"
I said, "the medication will stop working.  Unless I'm lucky enough to
get a heart-lung transplant, I will be dying.  I'm here because I'm
looking for help in that process.  I don't want to die, but if there's
no choice, I'd like to prepare for death with a sense of equanimity.  I
meditate every day, but I need to go deeper.  I'm also concerned about
my daughter, and what will happen to her after I'm gone."

"That sounds reasonable," he said.  "Let me tell you a little about what
I do, and how I might be able to help.  I work mostly with cancer
patients, although a few clients have other terminal illnesses.  My
focus is on healing, but I want to be very clear as to how I'm using
that word.  I don't practice as a physician, so 'healing' doesn't refer
to a cure, or a process where the patient's disease miraculously
disappears.  That happens on occasion, but it's rare and mysterious and
you can't plan on it.  As I use the word, a patient can be "healed'
during the illness and still die.  In fact, some people are more healed
and more whole when they're dying than at any other point in their
lives.  It's almost as if their physical weakness frees up a different
kind of energy."

I nodded.  While I appreciated what Dr.  Pisani was saying, he struck me
as being a little too comfortable with the inevitability of death.  He
might have been picking up on my reaction, for he added, "At the same
time, I don't believe in closing the door or giving up.  Bernie Siege!
has a saying that I like: 'In the face of uncertainty, there's nothing
wrong with hope."'

"I understand," I said.  "You don't promise miracle cures, and I
wouldn't believe you if you did.  But can you tell me what you do mean
by 'healing'?"

"Let me try," he said.  "But it's slightly different for each person, so
what I tell you may sound a little broad.  To me, healing is the process
of experiencing greater awareness.  I've also heard it defined as the
integration of body and mind into the heart, or living fully in the
present moment.  In my experience, healing generally includes the repair
of important relationships.  For most people, that process includes
forgiveness, acceptance, and making peace with the people who have been
important to you, even if they're no longer part of your life."

"You seem to work exclusively with people who are dying," I said. "Don't
you find that a little morbid?"

"I really don't," he said.  "Sometimes it's sad, as you might expect,
but many other emotions come into play, too, including relief and even
joy.  There's a great richness that often comes out when people who are
facing death begin to explore the meaning of their lives.  Some people
with a terminal disease tend to be highly motivated, and they find that
illness provides an opportunity for discovery and spiritual growth. Many
of them are prepared to do difficult work, and they're not easily
discouraged even when some of the issues they're facing turn out to be
complicated, demanding, or painful."

"And you've been doing this work for some time?" I asked.

"Yes.  When I started out, I noticed that people with life threatening
illnesses generally fell into two camps.  Many of them simply give up
because their lives seem to be over, and sometimes that becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy.  Other people experience their illness as a
great challenge, and are so highly motivated that they're willing to
consider treatments and approaches that are often dismissed as flaky or
weird.  Whether it's biofeedback, acupuncture, homeopathy, or the kind
of mind body work that Herb Benson does those techniques were not widely
known before the early 1970s."

When I left Rick's office and made my way back down the stairs, I was
pretty sure I had found the right therapist.  And I was ready for a more
holistic approach.  My first experience with alternative medicine had
come ten years earlier, when Dr.  Benson's meditation project yielded
such dramatic results.

Since then I had been meditating every day.  Looking back on it, I was
probably a perfect candidate for some blend of the spiritual and the
emotional.  I was open-minded, I was rebellious, and I was already
attracted to yoga and Eastern religions.

I met with Rick once a week for two years, and to some extent these
sessions changed my life.  He encouraged me to read books on spiritual
themes that he thought I'd find helpful, such as Love Is Letting Go of
Fear by Gerald Jampolsky; How Shall I Live by Richard Moss; To Live
Until We Say Good-bye by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross; and several volumes by
Stephen Levine, including Healing into Lfe and Death and Meetings at the
Edge.  I found Levine's work to be especially insightful, and I have
often gone back to his books.

One of the most important techniques Rick introduced me to was guided
imagery.  With the help of my meditation routines and some breathing
exercises, I would enter a state of deep relaxation until I found myself
at a level of consciousness where my physical sensations began to fade
away.  I would then imagine a brilliant ball of white light floating
above my head, which rep resented the healing energy of the universe.  I
would slowly allow the energy from that light to flow into the cells of
my body, washing through me until I felt both its heat and its light.
Now imagine that this ball of light is transformed into a laser-like
beam of white light that is directed to specific areas in your body that
are in need of healing.  Feel it being directed at your heart.  Feel it
being directed at your lungs.

Rick prepared a tape for me, which I'd listen to at home every day.
Against a background of soft, relaxing music, his soothing voice would
lead me into a meditative state, where I would visualize the light and
the healing beams emanating from it.  Also on the tape were several
affirmations that I would repeat: I am relaxed.  I am calm.  I am at
peace.  I am whole.

As I try to describe these sessions, I'm aware of how easily they can
seem banal and simplistic, like a parody of New Age psychobabble.  To
some extent I share that prejudice, especially when I look back on that
time from my privileged and comfortable position of good health.  But I
believe that when we send out positive messages about our wishes and
desires, they resonate and eventually come back to us in some form
although not necessarily in the ways we may have envisioned. Almost
everybody daydreams occasionally, but to do so actively and
intentionally , to call up a specific vision with a sense of purpose,
can provide us with encouragement, inspiration, and hope.

Visualizations move us forward.

When I was suffering, these visualizations helped a lot.  When you're
acutely ill, and you can enter a space where you actually imagine
yourself being healed, the effect can be powerful and highly therapeutic
at least to the soul.  And when the soul can be healed, the body
sometimes follows.  But even when it doesn't, a healing soul is often
its own reward.

Now I'd like you to do back in your mind's eye to a place from your
childhood where you felt safe and comfortable, and to see yourself in
this safe place once again....  I would visualize myself in a grassy
field on a summer day, and the effect was so vivid and real that even
during a New England winter I could feel the warm sunlight on my face.

Although my body had grown weak, I never lost my urge to dance.  And
here, in the secure, supportive environment of my imagination, I saw
myself dancing again whole and healthy, moving fully, passionately, and
without restraint.  More than once the thought occurred to me that if
there really was such a thing as reincarnation, and we could somehow
choose our next cycle, I would want to return as a dancer again but an
even better dancer this time, with more power, more passion, more grace,
more agility, more of everything. And I would dance through my new life
with even more enthusiasm than I had the first time around.  I took
great joy in this fantasy, never daring to believe that it would
actually and literally come true in this life time.

Once, when I described these exuberant images to a friend, she asked if
I didn't feel depressed or disheartened by the blatant and possibly
cruel discrepancy between my waking reality and that part of my life
where I was once again dancing freely.

But I never did.  Time after time, I found these visions uplifting and
comforting.  Because they took place in my own head, I was in charge; I
was, in every sense, the choreographer.  Had I at tended a performance
and seen someone else dancing on stage, the contrast between her
physical abilities and mine would have been too painful which is why I
stopped going to dance performances, just as I had stopped going after
college, when it appeared that my nascent dance career was already over.
But now, in these private performances on the stage of my imagination, I
was dancing as well as I had ever danced, and choreographing to music I
heard in my head.  I was really and fully there, and the healing
psychological effects of these sessions remained with me long after they
were over.

Although Rick was interested in a number of different treatments, not
everything he suggested was helpful.  Rolling, a form of deep-tissue
massage, had little effect on me.  Rick had studied with Ida Rolf, who
invented this technique, which involves an intense and often painful
stretching of various muscles and connective tissues.  The idea, which
makes sense to me, is that manipulating these areas can release
significant early memories that are somehow stored in the body.  But for
me, at least, it wasn't helpful.  One of the qualities I appreciated
about Rick was that he was undogmatic; he was searching, too, and he
understood that not every treatment would necessarily benefit every
client.

Exactly two years after it began, my stay of execution came to an end.
Suddenly the stairs to Rick's office seemed steeper than usual, and the
problem quickly grew worse.  Although I had known all along that
Procardia was only a temporary solution, I was severely disappointed
when its powers began to wane.  Evidently I had harbored more fantasies
than I knew that this dramatic improvement in my health would continue
indefinitely.

When my old symptoms began recurring, including fatigue and shortness of
breath, Rick urged me to see one of his colleagues, an experienced
homeopathic doctor who interviewed me at length and gave me a remedy
that consisted of the venom of a poisonous South American snake.  It
sounded bizarre, but I was willing to try itnot only because I was
feeling desperate, but also because one of my regular doctors had
recently mentioned an experimental new medicine that was derived from
snake venom.  Okay, I thought, I'll just be taking the same prescription
in its natural form.  What have I got to lose?

But the treatment only exacerbated my symptoms.  The following day I was
supposed to go to lunch with Barbara Katz, a sculptor I had met on the
local arts council.  I was feeling so weak that I called Barbara to
cancel, but she insisted on stopping by to check on me.  It's a good
thing she did, because when she entered the apartment she found me
almost lifeless on the living-room couch.  Barbara called an ambulance
and rushed me to the hospital, where I rested for a few days until I was
strong enough to go home.  From my hospital room, I spoke by telephone
to the homeopath, who explained that dilute solutions sometimes
exaggerate the symptoms, bringing on a "healing crisis." But I was in no
position to exaggerate anything, so that was it for homeopathy.

This episode seemed to hasten my decline, and during the final weeks of
1987 I was in and out of the hospital several times.

On New Year's Eve, my boyfriend Alan and four of our friends came by
with party hats and champagne, and this impromptu celebration really
lifted my spirits.  No matter how badly I was feeling, I was never too
sick for a party.

But my condition was getting worse, and additional doses of Procardia
had no effect.  When I wasn't in the hospital, I was housebound and
using oxygen.  When I could no longer leave the apartment, Rick made
occasional house calls.

I could feel my body sinking and shrinking, losing its muscle tone and
vitality as the aging process accelerated.  I started shedding years of
earthly, mundane concern scaring for the house, deciding what to cook,
whom to call, and where to go, as the physical details of daily life
became increasingly meaning less.  I felt myself rising to another
plane, a place of clarity and calm, lightness and peace.  What is
happening?  I wondered.  Is it the soul arising from the body?  Is this
denial?  Or perhaps acceptance? Will the anger come soon?

But I was too tired for anger or anything else.  When I dropped the soap
in the shower, I no longer had the strength to pick it up.  Little by
little, I felt myself giving up another piece of life each day.  Looking
at myself in the mirror, I saw old and I saw tired.  I saw blue lips,
fading eyes, sallow skin.  Oh, Grandma, am I you?

Grandma appeared to me in a dream where she collapsed in my arms.  "It's
not like I thought it would be, to die," she told me.  "It's really
quite wonderful." And then she expired, and while I held her, she
disintegrated.  A moment later she was gone, and I was left with her
essence melted wax in the palm of my hand.  In the dream I thought, How
wonderful.  All of us, the entire world we are all just a procession of
people.

My grandmother was telling me that I didn't have to fear death.  Dying
is normal, it's part of life.  Before his own death, my grandfather had
made a similar point.  "Twenty, thirty, sixty, eighty"he was counting in
Yiddish"vat the hell's the difference?  You live and you die."

I had never thought much about my own death, and even now I was far more
focused on staying alive.  But death had become part of my reality, and
from time to time I did think about it.  My fear about dying was
connected to not understanding it, and not really being able to imagine
that I would no longer exist.  Was it like sleep, I wondered, where my
body is still there but I'm not conscious?  Would the world really keep
going after I was gone?

I knew the answer, of course, but it was still a difficult concept to
grasp.  How can we possibly understand our own nonexistence?

It was easier to focus on my funeral.  I wanted to be cremated, with my
ashes scattered in the ocean.  Instead of mourning my death, I wanted
the guests to celebrate my life with champagne, gardenias, and
Beethoven.  After all, most funerals have a celebratory component, and
after the service, friends and relatives often share food and
companionship.  An actual celebration might be a little jarring, but I
did like the idea of throwing one last party even if I could be there
only in spirit.

As I grew weaker, my sense of time started to change.  On the one hand,
I probably didn't have all that much of it left.  On the other hand,
time was just about all I did have.  Sitting still or lying in bed, I
was acutely aware of the ticking of the clock, and of the many tasks and
activities, both interesting and ordinary, that were no longer filling
the hours of each day.  I felt an odd blending of floating in endless
time while also being aware that my earthly time was limited.  I was
living in a kind of dimensionless present.

For the first time in my life, I had no real future to look for ward to.
I had always assumed that when the time finally came to face death I'd
be a much older woman, in my seventies or eighties.  But now, what I had
previously envisioned as my middle years had abruptly been transformed
into my curtain call.

You're supposed to be old at the end of your life, but I was only
forty-seven!

While my contemporaries were going through their midlife crises, I was
fading away.  Or maybe I was having the ultimate midlife crisis, where
midlife and end-life were unfolding simultaneously .  And yet I don't
remember feeling angry that I was being cheated out of two or three
entire decades that most people my age could look forward to.  This was
the hand I was dealt, and I would play it as best I could.

Sometimes the days and nights merged into one.  Lying in bed, I would
occasionally wonder: if I close my eyes and fall asleep, how can I be
sure I'll wake up?  Each breath I took might be my last, and sometimes
the sound of my own gasps wrenched me out of my light sleep.  How long,
I wondered, can I go on like this?

I was continually aware of Amara in the next room.  Was she sleeping, or
was she lying awake and crying again?  By now, of course, she knew
everything; how could there possibly be any secrets between us?  She was
crying a lot, and she couldn't hide her sadness or her fear.

I had some idea of how difficult it was for Amara to come into my room
and see me like this: lying in my bed, my color gone, and an oxygen tube
in my nose.  But I was so focused on my own situation, and so accustomed
to it, that I didn't always realize how painful it must have been.  My
illness was the over riding reality of her life, too, and she had
started writing about my condition in some of her school assignments.
One is from early 1988, began: "Claire Sylvia lies on her bed, looking
relaxed and quite comfortable even though she has an oxygen tank next to
her...." And it continued: "Because of her illness she's unable to do
most anything that will take her energy away. This brings pain to her
face."

Poor girl, having to write these words.  Who was attending to the pain
in her face?  In her papers she expressed more emotion than she ever let
me see.

Amara was almost sixteen now, ana reasoned.  I no longer had the
strength to impose curfews or other forms of discipline.  Like many
single parents, I tended to be overly lenient in any case, and the
vivid, painful memories of my own tyrannical mother made me even more
indulgent.  But now there was so much I didn't know, so much I couldn't
do.  I no longer knew who her friends were, and I couldn't even attend
Open School night, when the parents were invited to meet their
children's teachers.  Because Amara was already burdened by my illness,
I hired a part-time housekeeper to help out with shop ping, cooking,
cleaning, and laundry.

I knew that Amara had a boyfriend, but I discovered only later that for
a long time she hadn't let him know how sick I really was.  For months,
Danny's parents had wondered why I never drove Amara anywhere.  When
they finally learned the truth, they welcomed Amara into their family
and were incredibly supportive to me.

I also didn't realize that my illness was putting an enormous strain on
Amara's relationship with Danny.  She couldn't complain to me, so she
opened up to him.  But like many high school boys, Danny wasn't yet
mature enough to provide the emotional support that Amara needed.  They
often fought, although Amara understood that she wasn't so much angry at
Danny as upset about her mother.  Their relationship began to
deteriorate, and soon Amara found herself making deals with God:

"Okay, I'll give up my boyfriend if you save my mother's life."

I'm glad I didn't know about this until much later.

I twice tried to take Amara on a cruise, but both times we had to cancel
because I was too sick to travel.  And when the Pro cardia was still
working, I had bought advance tickets to Les Miserables.  I was looking
forward to taking Amara for her sixteenth birthday, but when February
came around I was too sick to go.

I felt terrible: for most of Amara's life there had been only two of us
in our little family, and now, increasingly, there was only one.  I
recalled my own unhappy adolescence, when our family of four felt small
and unhappy.  This was even worse.

Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning and tell myself that I simply must
have a shower today.  Then I'd realize that I probably ought to wait
until someone else was in the house, because taking a shower wasn't
something I should be doing alone

just in case.  But there were so many"just in case's."

In case what?  I pass out?  I go numb again?  That had already happened:
I was in the car when my whole left side suddenly went numb and I had to
pull off the road.  That was it for driving.

What was the worst that could happen?  I could die, of course, which was
probably just a matter of time.  Dying was no longer confined to the
future; it could happen any day, any hour.

When would it be?  What would it feel like?  Who would discover me?
Would it be Amara?  And what would that do to my poor baby?

The questions never stopped.  Time to calm myself.  Time to meditate, to
move from the physical to the spiritual.

Spirituality is one of those amorphous terms that means different things
to different people.  I like Bernie Siege's definition: the ability to
find peace and happiness in an imperfect world.  Fortunately, I was able
to find some of each.  Despite everything I was facing, I never had
suicidal thoughts.  I under stand the impulse, but I'm opposed to the
act.  I believe that each of us is given a life, and however long or
painful that life may be, ending it is God's decision, not ours.  We
can't presume to know what God has in mind for us.  But in all fairness,
I can imagine feeling differently if I suffered from intolerable pain.
Fortunately, I never did.

No matter how bad things were, I was usually able to move my thoughts in
a more positive direction.  Maybe there's no such thing as dying, I told
myself at one point.  Maybe you're either living or you're dead.  And if
that's the case, I'm definitely alive.

For a while that idea was comforting that even if I was 90 percent dead,
that meant I was still 10 percent alive, which put me on the right side
of the equation.

Throughout these months I remembered Mary Gohlke's words of
encouragement: Keep going, I told myself, breath by i breath, moment by
moment, no matter how hard it gets.  Keep breathing, even if you have to
pretend to breathe.  Finding my self in this grave situation, I dared
not think macabre thoughts, of corpses, funerals, eulogies, and coffins.

Keep going!  Don't give up, I told myself.  You're still part of the
world.  Life is still flowing everywhere around you.  And even, however
faintly, within you.

Difficult Days.

VALENTINE'S DAY, 1988 .

Just when it seemed that things couldn't get worse, Alan left me.  We
had been together for seven good years, and ever since Mary Gohlke's
Parade article, when my life changed forever, he had cared for me and
helped me with hundreds of worldly details I could no longer attend to.
But now, after pulling away for several weeks, he was gone.  First the
Procardia ran out of steam, and then Alan.

I was devastated.  With Alan gone, I felt a terrible loneliness.

I had made my peace with dying, but now I was abandoned.  In all
probability, I would be ending my life alone.  Although I had known that
Alan might leave, I was miserable when it actually happened.

The nights were the hardest.  For five years Alan and I had spent
virtually every night together, which was longer than some marriages
including one of mine.  This was the hardest time of my life. The misery
of being dumped is bad enough, but under normal circumstances you can at
least imagine or hope that some day love will find you again. In my
condition, that seemed extremely unlikely.

Thank God for my friend Barbara Katz, who was fast becoming my guardian
angel.  In January, when the transplant people at Johns Hopkins had
agreed to see me for an evaluation, I was too weak to travel to
Baltimore by myself.  Alan hadn't offered to take me, and by then I
couldn't bring myself to ask.  Although our friendship was still new,
Barbara stepped right in.

In Baltimore, I was given a series of tests to monitor my heart and
lungs.  The doctors even examined my fingertips and my nails to
determine how much oxygen was getting through to my extremities.  But
while the medical staff was very considerate, they were careful not to
paint too rosy a picture about the operation I was there to discuss.  "A
transplant is a mixed blessing," said one of the nurses.  "To some
extent, you'll just be exchanging one set of problems for another."

That's easy for you to say, I thought.  At least I'd be alive to have a
set of problems.

I had gone to Hopkins with a mixture of hope and skepticism, and while
we were there I felt pulled in both directions.  I was hoping they would
list me as a candidate, and to my great relief, they did.  But they also
made clear that it might well take a year or even two years before I was
called, which was something I had already learned from my research and
networking.

But even if I lived long enough for the call to come in, I wasn't sure
how I would respond.  While a transplant would probably save my life, it
was still an enormously frightening and dangerous operation.  Was this
really something that I could do?  I honestly didn't know.  I was
applying for membership in a society I didn't necessarily want to join.

While I expected that my evaluation would include various tests and
measurements, I hadn't realized that the transplant team was just as
interested in my character and my outlook. Understandably , they saw
themselves as guardians of a precious gift that was in exceedingly short
supply, and to be blunt about it, they weren't about to waste that gift
on anyone who wasn't a good bet to take excellent care of it.  When you
perform enough transplants, they told me, the operation itself becomes
almost routine. More often than not, what ultimately determines a
patient's survival is what happens in the months and years after the
surgery.

While some of the variables are beyond anyone's control, one key factor
that affects survival rates is the recipient's subsequent behavior and
her willingness to accept responsibility.  "We can transplant almost
anyone," I was told.  "But because there are many more applicants than
donors, we look for people with a high potential for compliance.  We
can't monitor the patients after they leave the hospital, so we're
looking for people who will be scrupulous about taking their
medications, following the necessary precautions, and returning at
regular intervals for follow-up visits."

They were also interested in candidates who had a positive,
life-affirming attitude.  While I evidently scored high on that scale,
it was clear that a few eyebrows had been raised by my re cent
experiment with snake venom which, I was sorry to learn, had already
become part of my medical records.  Even so, my motivation and my will
to live came through loud and clear.

I returned home from Hopkins with more hope than I had felt in months. I
also brought back a pair of beepers that were supposed to alert me or my
partner, in case I missed the signal in the event that a suitable heart
and lungs suddenly be came available.  At that point, assuming I said
yes, Amara and I would drop everything and fly down to Baltimore on a
private jet.

I was too weak to leave the house, but Amara wore her beeper everywhere,
including school.  Nobody had warned us that these devices sometimes go
off accidentally, and while my beeper was silent, Amara had to cope with
three or four false alarms over the next few months, all of them during
class.  Each time the beeper went off, she'd go tearing down the halls
to call me.  I would immediately call Hopkins, where the transplant team
would say "No, sorry, it must be a mistake." Then I'd call Amara at the
school office to tell her there was no news.  This process must have
been awful for her, and I can only imagine how vulnerable she felt each
time it happened.

It was easier for me.  Some people on transplant waiting lists become
obsessed with their beepers, but I didn't give it much thought.  Whether
I was ever called for a transplant was totally out of my hands, and
somehow I was able to accept that.  I now believe that not having
decided whether to accept the offer assuming, of course, that it ever
came made waiting a little easier. Postponing this decision was my way
of maintaining a measure of control.

To the extent it was possible, I spent my days living as fully as I
could, rather than waiting for news.  Sometimes I became frightened or
anxious, but when that happened, I usually had ways of coping.  Between
meditation, visualization, a few close friends, and an occasional
Valium, I was generally able to keep my spirits up.

But not always.  There were times when I wanted to scream, when I wished
I had the physical ability to really howl.  Some times, when I was using
oxygen, I was seized by a powerful desire to rip the cord off my nose
and to run out the door and into a field.  This was followed by a
stifling claustrophobia when it hit me again that I couldn't do that.
There were times when I thought I'd go out of my mind with frustration
and fear.

When friends and acquaintances heard I was on the waiting list for a
transplant at Hopkins, they started congratulating me as if I had won an
award or passed an important audition.  I could never get used to this,
and I still find it weird.  Imagine: a hospital has agreed, at least in
principle, to rip the heart and lungs out of your body and replace them
with the heart and lungs of somebody who has just died.  And for this
you're being congratulated?

Today, of course, being wait-listed for a transplant is a little more
common.  It wouldn't surprise me if Hallmark has issued a greeting card
that begins "So you're having a transplant!"

While Alan's departure was a terrible blow, I also felt some re lief
when he left.  Now I no longer had to worry about being too much of a
burden.  Several other friends fell away, too.  For some people, being
around a dying person is too painful a reminder of their own mortality,
or is otherwise so difficult that it's often better for both sides if
they simply withdraw at least for a while.  That way, the negative
energy leaves with them.

While some friends vanished, others appeared to fill the vacuum.  My
nephew Stuart, Marilyn's son, was a frequent visitor and a terrific
companion.  Barbara looked in on me often, while two other friends, Ruth
and Anita, brought me dinners, ran er rands, and came by almost every
day.  Even when there were no errands to be done, it felt good to know
that some people wanted to be with me.

At first, however, these visits were difficult in a way I hadn't
anticipated.  I felt awkward and guilty at being so incapacitated, and
so dependent on my friends.  Before I could fully appreciate their
generosity, I had to learn how to accept help.  I had always been more
comfortable as the caretaker, and at first it felt disconcerting to find
myself on the receiving end of these loving transactions.

 I also had to accept the simple reality that there were many simple
tasks I could no longer do for myself, including silly little things
that were either unnecessary or compulsive, such as putting every last
item in its proper place, or organizing the magazines on the coffee
table in just the right way.  With a little practice and a lot of
willpower, I was gradually able to surrender some of my desire for
neatness, order, and control.  But I never got used to having other
people, even close friends, puttering around in my kitchen.

Sometimes I wondered: How can I possibly repay the friends who came to
me with such love and compassion?  Eventually, I understood that I was
giving something back, simply by welcoming and appreciating their
efforts.  Giving and generosity, I realized, are as therapeutic and
helpful to the giver as they are to the recipient.  When I put myself in
their position, I realized that they genuinely wanted to help, or even
needed to.  And when I understood that in some subtle way I was giving
something back to those who gave to me, I stopped feeling sorry for
myself.  To be a graceful and appreciative recipient its in itself a
gift to the giver.

Without saying so explicitly, my visitors made it clear that this was
indeed a two-way transaction, and that in giving to me, they were also
learning from me.  Later on, when I cared for other people who were very
sick, I learned this lesson for my self: that when you spend time with
people who are dying, you discover a lot about living.  These visits can
be stressful and arduous, but they can also be enormously rewarding.
Even as my physical self was shrinking, my spiritual self was expanding.

But I still wanted to acknowledge my friends in a more tangible way, and
one morning the idea occurred to me to throw a small party for the
people who were so good to me.  Coming to my apartment had become a
pretty grim experience, and at least once, I wanted my visitors to have
a happy time in my presence, and with each other.  While it felt a
little strange to be planning a celebration, I found that just thinking
about the details the food, the music, the guest list gave me an
energizing dose of pleasure and strength.  To some small extent, I was
being me again entertaining, organizing, bringing people together.  At a
time when so many pieces of my identity were disappearing, it was
wonderful to be planning a party.

I had help of course, especially from Amara, who prepared the food.  I
also ordered a big cake inscribed with the phrase "To Life." Some of my
friends brought their friends and partners, and Amara invited a couple
of her own friends as well.  I stayed with the group as long as I was
able, and then retired to my room with my oxygen tank to enjoy the happy
sounds of laughter.  The party was just what I had hoped for.  When I
die, I thought, this is how I'd like my funeral to be.

Barbara told me years later that she thought this party marked a turning
point.  "You had every reason to give up," she told me, "but here you
were making a statement, just like the phrase on that cake, that you
intended not only to survive, but to live." Barbara was probably right.
I had assumed this party was for my friends, but of course it was also
for me.

Sometimes, when there were no errands to be done and nothing that
required conversation, my visitors would just sit quietly with me. Their
presence was always comforting, and often healing. They knew they
couldn't take my pain away, and they made no effort to distract me, or
themselves, with talk, gifts, or other diversions.  When I was too weak
to speak, or was otherwise inclined toward quiet, I was always grateful
for visitors who understood that silence, too, is a form of
communication.  When I danced with Helen Tamiris, she would occasionally
remind us that keeping perfectly still during a dance routine is itself
a form of movement, just as a brief silence or rest during a piece of
music is a vital part of the total musical expression.

These days, whenever I go to see a friend in the hospital, I notice that
many visitors are busy filling the air with a constant stream of
chatter, or are restlessly flitting around the room.

With the best of intentions, people tend to regard silence or stillness
as an embarrassment, or an enemy to be obliterated at every opportunity.
So my advice to those who are visiting sick friends or relatives: you
don't always need to speak.  The mere fact that you are there, in the
room, may convey everything that needs to be communicated.

But there were also times when the words of my visitors were extremely
helpful.  I was in the hospital one evening when my friends Judy and
Derek came to visit.  They arrived at a moment when I was particularly
weak and frightened.  My blood pressure had dropped dramatically, and
the alarmed nurse had gone to look for the doctor.  Judy told me later
that one of the nurses had said, "Claire's lungs are like tissue paper,
and we're having trouble finding a pulse."

As I gazed at the door, Judy appeared.  She came quickly to the bed,
enfolded me in her arms, and began to pray for me and with me.  I
totally let go to her, to the prayers, and to God as I had never done
before.  She must have held me tightly for half an hour, and tears were
washing my face.  She was like a mother holding a child, a holding I had
needed and wanted all my life.  I couldn't remember ever being held that
way by my own mother.

Judy and Derek are Christian Scientists, and Judy was reciting well, not
just reciting, but really praying the words of a well-known poem by Mary
Baker Eddy called"Mother's Evening Prayer." It begins:

O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;

O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,

Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering fliht!

Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye Can I behold the snare, the pit,
His habitation high is here, and nigh, His arm encircles me, and mine,
and all.

As Judy prayed with me that evening, I felt myself being held in God's
right hand.  Judy grew up knowing God as both Father arid Mother, and
during her prayer I experienced both of these powerful images.

As Judy was praying, her husband Derek came into the room.

when Judy was finished, Derek took my hand and recited the Twenty-third
Psalm, "The Lord Is My Shepherd." I had heard these words all my life,
but now, in this context, they were almost burning with meaning.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil,for Thou art with me.

That night, I knew, He really was with me.

IN APRIL, some promising news: New Haven Hospital in Connecticut was
about to become the fourth medical center in the country, and the first
in New England, to perform heart lung transplants.  The new program was
being built around Dr.  John Baldwin, a rising star in the world of
transplant surgery, who had previously been at Stanford.  Yale was an
easy drive from Boston, and it was encouraging to know that another
potential lifeline might soon be available.  My doctor shared my
optimism; he promised to write to Dr. Baldwin to ask if I could be
evaluated at Yale.

In early May, I awoke one morning feeling particularly frail.

When I called my doctor to see whether he had heard from Dr.  Baldwin,
his secretary informed me- that he had just left the country for three
weeks.  When I specifically asked about the new transplant program at
Yale, she said my doctor hadn't yet contacted them on my behalf.

It took all my energy just to make that call.  If I'd had any strength
to spare, I would have been furious that nothing had happened.  Instead,
I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Once again Barbara rescued me; this was getting to be a habit.  When she
came to see me that afternoon, I was weaker than ever. "You looked
Preen," she said later.

I told her my doctor hadn't even written to Yale.

"I'm not surprised," she said.  Barbara had met him two or three times
when I was in the hospital, and she was convinced he had given up on me.
Now she began to take on the anger that I was too exhausted to feel.

"I'm calling Yale," she said, reaching for the phone.

"But they don't have my records."

"I'm calling anyway.  We can't just sit here and let you fade away.

Whether it was luck, persistence, or providence, Barbara got right
through to the person in charge.  Gail Eddy was the coordinator of
Yale's new transplant program, and after Barbara described my situation,
Gail asked to speak to me.

"I think you should come for an evaluation," she said.  "Don't worry
about your records; I'll have them sent.  When can you be here?"

It was an odd question, because I had nothing on my calendar for the
rest of my life.  Could I come down in two weeks?  Definitely. Now all I
had to do was stay alive until then, which suddenly didn't seem all that
difficult.  Maybe I was kidding myself, but my brief conversation with
Gail Eddy had given me hope.

My unconscious mind must have felt the same way, for that night I had
two auspicious dreams.  In the first one, a sharp, shiny knife floated
in front of me, surrounded by a white glow.  As I watched in amazement,
the knife cut the neck of a baby, near his Adam's apple.  But I knew the
baby wasn't hurt, because there was no crying and no blood.

In the second dream, the transplant was already over.  It had gone
smoothly, with no pain, and right after the operation I was walking
around.  But the doctors hadn't told me that I would need to drink four
glasses of milk each day.  I learned this by chance, talking to somebody
else.

It seemed clear that both dreams were strongly optimistic projections
about the transplant.  In the first one, the operation was painless and
almost otherworldly.  I was the baby a male baby, for some reason.  In
the second dream I was myself, although the four glasses of milk did
suggest a baby or a small child.  In both dreams, the operation had been
successful.

A week later, I had a third and more elaborate dream.  I was pregnant,
but my skin was translucent, which allowed me to see the baby within. It
looked like a little E.T.  figure as it waved its tiny hand.  But the
baby's face was the face of my mother.  I was about to give birth to my
own mother!

In this dream, I realized later, the extraterrestrial creature was
greeting me from his capsule in my inner world.  Although he hadn't yet
arrived, he was holding up the open hand of friend ship. He was my
child, a harbinger of my new, post-transplant self.  But he was also my
mother.  In effect, I was carrying the 'embryo that would give birth to
my new life.

But why E.T.?  Perhaps because E.T.  was a creature of the heart.  Late
in the movie he appears to die, but when his "people" arrive to rescue
him, his heart lights up and he returns to life.

Perhaps this image of rebirth and resurrection was a dream echo of
Giselle and Limelight.

Later on, I would examine these dreams more closely.  But for now, my
short-term goal was to make it to the evaluation.  Until then, I went to
sleep each night with my standard two-part prayer: that I would wake up
the next morning, and that I would somehow survive beyond that long
enough to be there for Amara, at least until she finished high school.

The evaluation at Yale was shorter and simpler than the one at Hopkins,
which was just as well, because I could barely make it from the
wheelchair to the examining table.  I spent most of the day with Gail
Eddy, a bright, upbeat, and vivacious woman with long blond hair, blue
eyes, and a terrific smile.  I liked her enormously , and we seemed to
have an immediate rapport.

Gail, who had previously worked as an intensive care nurse at this same
hospital, brought me in to meet Dr.  Baldwin, and the two of them
interviewed me in a small office.  It was strange, given the
circumstances, but I felt as if I were interviewing them, too.  Although
I had heard that Dr.  Baldwin was in his late thirties, I was struck by
his boyish face.  At the same time, he projected an aura of considerable
self-confidence.  He told me that at Stanford he had performed
forty-nine heart-lung transplants. If he was trying to reassure me, it
worked.

Like their counterparts at Hopkins, Gail and Dr.  Baldwin asked about my
family, my medical history, and my reasons for seeking a transplant.  At
the end of the interview, Dr.  Baldwin said, "In my view, you're sick
enough to be listed, along with three other candidates whom we have
already seen.  At the moment, the program hasn't officially opened;
we're still waiting for permission from the state.  But we expect it
soon, and the moment it comes through, we'll list you." Here, too, I was
re minded that it often takes a year or two before a suitable donor is
found, and that an appropriate match depends, among other factors, on
compatible blood types and organ size.  Even so, I left Yale feeling
that my chances of staying alive had just doubled.

Gail had a similar reaction.  "I'm going to be seeing that woman again,"
she told her secretary.

Back in my apartment the next morning, I read through the patient
handbook that Gail had given me, which spelled out some of the
nitty-gritty details of heart-lung transplants.  Barbara came over in
the afternoon, and because she had been with me at Hopkins, she was
especially eager to hear about my trip to Yale.  We were in my kitchen,
eating chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream, when the phone rang. Amara
usually answered, but she was in the shower, so I picked it up.

"Claire?  It's Gail Eddy.  Seventeen hours ago, just after you left, we
received permission to open the program.  We listed you right away, and
we have a donor for you today."

The phone was silent as she awaited my reaction.  But I was speechless.
I couldn't think of anything to say.

This can't be happening, I thought.  I was there only yesterday, hoping
to get on a list that didn't even exist yet.  This was weird.

It seemed to have a "meant-to-be" quality.

"We figure you've got about two hours to get back here.  How about it,
Claire?"

Omigod, Omigod.  This is unbelievable!  My mind started racing through
half a zillion thoughts, none of which I could articulate.  All the
things I would need to arrange.  What I would bring.  Here I was, facing
a sudden, life-and-death decision, and what was I thinking about?  My
hair!  Thank God I just had it cut.

But did I shave my legs?

"What do you say, Claire?"

I still couldn't answer.  I was overwhelmed as I tried to comprehend the
magnitude and meaning of this amazing gift.

Barbara was right beside me.  I looked at her and said, "What should I
do?"

But my decision had already been made.  I just needed support.

"Go for it," Barbara said.

Still unable to answer Gail, I handed the phone to Barbara.

Just then Amara came running out of the shower, dripping wet.

Somehow she knew what was happening.  "Tell her yes!" I called to
Barbara as Amara and I hugged through our tears.  For months, we'd each
had a suitcase packed and ready to go, in case Hopkins came through.

Barbara handed me the phone, and the next few minutes were right out of
an old screwball comedy.  Barbara is nearly blind, and I was on oxygen,
connected by a long cord to a tank in the bedroom.  The two of us were
passing the phone back and forth, asking questions, yelling
instructions, and tripping over furniture.  Twice we disconnected the
call entirely, and Gail, completely calm, had to call back.  Amara was
busily making calls on her own line, while Gail was also arranging for a
helicopter to take me to Yale.

"What should I bring?" I asked her.

"Sneakers, shorts, and a tee-shirt."

"No, seriously!"

"I am serious.  You're going to be up on an exercise bike right after
the operation."

Yeah, right.  But I packed them anyway.  By now I was hyper ventilating
from all the excitement, and I swallowed half a Valium to calm myself
down.

Gail told me to meet the helicopter at a landing pad near the Museum of
Fine Arts.  But it was a humid day and I was having trouble breathing.
The helicopter had no air conditioning, and it was so small that neither
Amara nor Barbara would be able to come with me.  I asked Gail if there
were any other options.

"I guess you could drive," she said.  "But you'll have to leave right
away, and you should alert the state police that you'll be going pretty
fast."

By now the Valium was kicking in, and I became calmer.  I knew how I
wanted this trip to proceed: I would travel by car with Amara and
Barbara.  I was willing to sacrifice speed if it meant a little comfort
and support.

Barbara called her husband to see if he could drive us.  Remarkably, she
caught Bob just as he was leaving the house; an other few seconds and he
would have been gone.  Bob said he'd be right over another good sign.

Moments later, we were on the road: Bob and Barbara were in the front
seat; Amara, my oxygen tank, and I were in the back.  As the car glided
toward New Haven, I lay down with my feet on Amara's lap.  I had brought
along a meditation tape to calm me down, and it helped.  Despite all the
excitement, I was feeling at peace.  Between meditation and Valium, I
was cover all my bets.

We had been driving for about an hour when Amara tapped me on the leg
and pointed to the side window.  "Look, Mom!"

There, peeking out of the clouds, was the brightest, most beautiful
rainbow I had ever seen.  I smiled at Amara, and our eyes met, both of
us silently sharing the knowledge that this was a good omen.  I took my
daughter's hand and squeezed it.  This was our rainbow connection.

Bob's turbo-charged Chrysler LeBaron had a big digital speedometer, and
at one point, Amara told me later, she noticed with alarm that we were
zooming down Route 91 at 91 miles per hour.  How appropriate, she
thought, but how awful if Mom dies in an accident on the way to her
transplant.

It was seven o'clock as we pulled up to the hospital entrance.

Gail was waiting for us with a nurse and a wheelchair.

"You again?" she said with a grin.

"You know how it is," I replied.  "I just couldn't stay away."

She smiled at me.  "Well, as long as you're here, we might as well go
upstairs.  I believe they're expecting you."

Wasting no time, Gail helped me into the Wheelchair and brought me
straight to the surgical unit.  A team of nurses hooked me up to an IV
and gave me my first dose of cyclo sporine, an antirejection drug.* From
my reading, I knew that if all went well I would be taking this medicine
for the rest of my life.  cyclo sporine is so important in organ
transplants that the first order of business was to make sure I wasn't
allergic to it.

Although we had rushed like crazy to get to the hospital, it soon became
clear that the actual transplant was still a few hours away.  The
medical team that travels to retrieve the donated organs doesn't leave
the recipient's hospital until the doctors have determined that the
recipient is free of infection and .  a, * Rejection is the single
biggest problem in organ transplants. Somehow our cells are able to
detect the presence of any element that, in the body's opinion, doesn't
belong there.  When an unidentified intruder shows up on its radar
screen, the body's instinctive response is to treat it as an enemy agent
that must be repelled, isolated, or destroyed.  If the perceived
intruder is a transplanted organ, the ensuing assault can lead to organ
failure and death.

Trying to prevent rejection is enormously difficult, because under
normal circumstances rejection is what enables our bodies to fight off
and resist a wide variety of toxins and infections that might otherwise
harm us.  When our immune system isn't functioning properly, or when
it's suppressed by ,antirejection drugs, even a minor infection can have
deadly consequences.

In the future, the threat of post-transplant rejection will likely be
solved by imprinting the recipient's genes into the transplanted organ.
The body will then perceive the new organ as familiar rather than
hostile, and will therefore leave it alone.

For the moment, however, the problem of rejection is being resolved
through cyclosporine More than any other medicine, cyclosporine reduces
the chances that the recipient's body will reject a transplanted organ,
but without predisposing the patient to too great a likelihood of
infection.

strong enough to survive the operation.  Because I had been evaluated
only yesterday, I didn't require a long examination.

But the nurses were drawing what seemed like my entire blood supply,
which would be tested and analyzed before the transplant could be done.

Like so much of life, this seemed to be a case of "hurry up and wait."
But I was well aware of how fortunate I was to be here at all.  I wasn't
alone, either.  In addition to Barbara, Bob, and Amara, who would all be
spending the night at a nearby hotel, my sister Marilyn had driven up
from New York with two of her sons.  And although I had met her only
yesterday, Gail's presence was enormously reassuring.

The scene that night was slightly surreal and more than a lit the
ironic: although I was awaiting a dramatic and dangerous operation, I
felt like the guest of honor at a party.  My hospital room was filled
with love.  At one point, looking up at all the concerned faces around
me, I actually felt sad for my visitors in the event that I didn't
survive.

I certainly hadn't expected to be feeling at ease at this moment' but if
serenity was within reach, I was happy to embrace it, I knew perfectly
well where I was and what I was facing, but I wasn't worried.  If this
turned out to be my final night on earth, so be it.  I felt no press of
unfinished business, no agenda of words left unsaid.

All the meditations, visualizations, and important conversations I had
been part of in the past couple of years seemed to culminate in this
moment.  It reminded me of that moment in dance when I would gather up
my combined resources of mind, body, and spirit, and risk all as I
stepped onto the ball of one foot and plunged into a long arabesque.  As
a dancer, I knew what it felt like to extend every part of my being into
unknown space.  You arrive at a moment in time and space when you
believe you will succeed, and that all your work has prepared you to
risk everytlung.  And you fly.

Once or twice that evening, my mind flashed back to the dreams I'd had
three weeks ago, in which I had already survived the transplant.  Those
dreams felt real to me now, and I hoped they were prophetic.  One of
them, it seemed, already was: earlier, when the nurse had given me my
first dose of cyclosporine, she had put the medicine in a cup of
chocolate milk and had explained that I would be taking two such doses a
day, each with two cups of milk.  In the dream, I had been told that I
would be drinking four cups of milk a day.

The one thing that made me anxious was that this would be the first
heart-lung transplant ever done in New England.  Other than Dr. Baldwin,
everybody on the medical teaIn would be going through this procedure for
the first time.  I felt like a pioneer, which was both exciting and
scary.  But I also remembered that Dr.  Baldwin had performed this
operation dozens of times at Stanford, and that I was in excellent
hands.

I was feeling spacey from the Valium, and from at least one of the drugs
that was coming through the IV.  I tried to put all of my thoughts
together into one positive visualization of a successful outcome, but
right now I couldn't manage it.  The medication was plunging me into a
swirling, half-awake dream state that fragmented my thoughts and made
concentration impossible.

One of the medications was drying out my mouth.  Because I couldn't eat
or drink before the operation, my only option was to suck on a damp
washcloth.  But I was feeling so woozy that I had trouble getting it to
my mouth.  Amara sat with me, and both of us were laughing as she helped
me negotiate the wash cloth's long and treacherous journey from my hand
to my face.

I was grateful for the literature Gail had given me yesterday at the
evaluation.  Was it really only yesterday?  Just this morning I had read
that after the operation, when the anesthesia wore off and I woke up, an
endotracheal breathing tube in my windpipe would prevent me from
speaking, and my hands would be tied to prevent me from pulling out the
tube.  The breathing tube would be connected to a respirator, which
would be breathing for me during and immediately after the surgery.
Somehow, knowing this in advance felt important to me.

Finally it was time for my visitors to leave.  When Marilyn leaned over
to kiss me goodbye, I could see the tears in her eyes.

"I just thought of something," she said.  "If you can't talk after the
operation, how will we know you're all right?"

I told her that when I woke up, if everything was okay I would wink at
her.

In my final lucid moments, through the fog of the tranquilizer and the
other medications, Gail came in with Dr.  Hammond, the assisting
surgeon, to let me know they would soon be leaving to "harvest" the
organs.  That word startled me.  I had never heard it used this way, and
it has since been replaced by other, more agreeable terms, such as
"retrieve" or "procure." I noticed that Dr.  Hammond was wearing high
boots and suspenders, which made him look like a man about to leave on a
fishing trip.

In a way, I suppose he was.

Gail explained that while she and Dr.  Hammond were gone, Dr.  Baldwin
would remain with me in the hospital.  He would begin the operation as
soon as he was notified that the donor's heart and lungs had been
removed, but Gail assured me that he wouldn't remove my own heart and
lungs until the new organs made it safely back to the operating room in
New Haven.

But by this time I was far too groggy to focus on these grotesque and
horrifying details, which was probably just as well.  Nor did I fully
understand that at one point in the process my body would be without any
heart and lungs, and that during this time I would be kept alive by a
machine.  That was too bizarre to contemplate.

Dr.  Baldwin came in and said, "We're going to put you under now.
Claire, I have to remind you that it's always possible that something
could go wrong, and the organs won't arrive in good condition.  This
sometimes happens with the lungs, which are very fragile.  They could be
damaged or bruised during transit.

We expect to do this transplant, but sometimes, at the very last minute,
things just don't work out."

I looked up at him and said, "That's okay.  Do what you have to.  It's
in God's hands now."

I meant it.  That night, too, I felt the presence of God.  And I truly
believed that God would be working through the hands of the surgeons and
nurses who were with the donor in Maine, and who would be with me in
this hospital in Connecticut.

It was three in the morning when they finally brought me to the
operating room.  Dr.  Baldwin's words of caution were the last thing I
heard before falling into a deep sleep.

WHILE I WAS OUT

IT HAD BEGUN with a phone call.  While Barbara and I were sitting in my
kitchen, the Maine coordinator from the New England Organ Bank called
Gail at her office.  The organ bank was already aware of my blood type,
tissue type, and body size.  "We have a donor for Claire Sylvia," the
coordinator told Gail.  "A

male, eighteen.  He's brain-dead,* and the family has given consent.
Cause of death was a head injury from a motorcycle accident.  We are now
placing organs, and the heart and lungs are suitable for donation.  We
have a normal echocardiogram, good left ventricular function, normal
valve, normal heart.  The patient had no CPR." The coordinator listed
various other facts and figures, which Gail dutifully recorded.

"I'll call you right back," she said.

When the call had come in, Dr.  Baldwin was in surgery, doing a heart
bypass.  Gail suited up and entered the operating room, where she
informed him that a donor was available for Claire Sylviaa young man
with a good medical history, no

* A brain-dead patient is one in whom all brain activity has ceased
forever, but whose heart is still beating either naturally or
artificially.  Legally, the patient is dead.

i heart disease, and normal heart and lungs.  She read him all the
values and measurements from the coordinator.

"Accept the organs," Dr.  Baldwin said.  The numbers were good and Gail
could see that he was pleased.  She called the man from the organ bank
and said yes.  Then she called me.

While I was on my way to New Haven, Gail arranged for a Learjet to fly a
medical team from YaleNew Haven Hospital to a medical center in Maine,
where they would remove the donor's heart and lungs and, assuming the
organs were in good condition, bring them back to Connecticut.  The
donor's lungs had already been measured, but just to be safe, the team
from Yale would be bringing along an X-ray of my lungs, which would be
superimposed over an X-ray of the donor's lungs to make sure the sizes
were indeed compatible.

Takeoff was scheduled for 11 P.M.  In addition to Gail and Dr.  Hammond,
the team included four other members: a second heart surgeon; an
anesthesiologist to "manage" the donor with the appropriate medications;
a pump profusionist to help run chemical solutions through the donor's
lungs; and a scrub nurse to assist the surgeons.

At 10:30, half an hour before takeoff, the team gathered in the
operating room, where they assembled all the equipment, medications, and
organ preservation solutions they might conceivably need in Maine.
Because organ retrieval is often done in smaller hospitals, surgeons
from the recipient's hospital generally bring their own instruments and
supplies.  Gail's equipment included the plastic Igloo picnic cooler
that, if all went well, would hold the organs during the flight back.
She had bought it at Caldor's, after discreetly holding up a tape
measure to a number of different coolers until she found one that was
the right side for a human heart and lungs with a little extra room for
a container and for ice.

At 10:45 P.M., an ambulance met the team at the entrance to the
emergency room and drove them to a waiting jet at Tweed Airport in East
Haven.  Throughout the afternoon and evening Gail had been in telephone
contact with the coordinator in Maine to ensure that the donor's
condition remained stable.  So far his lungs were still oxygenating
well, and his chest X-ray looked clear.  Earlier on, before any of the
organs were made available, the donor's blood had been tested to
determine its type, and to ensure there was no sign of the HIV virus,
hepatitis, or any other infection.  The donor was being maintained on a
ventilator, which breathed for him; his heart, however, was still
beating on its own.  But because a brain-dead patient can quickly become
unstable, there was no time to lose.

As the team from Yale made its way to Maine, two other teams were flying
to Maine from hospitals in Boston to retrieve the donor's kidneys and
his liver.  Of all organ transplant teams, the heart-lung group must
cope with the shortest amount of is chemic time, which measures how long
the organs can survive with no blood or oxygen.  From removal in Maine
to implantation in Connecticut, the team had no more than four hours.

As soon as the team landed in Maine, an ambulance met them on the runway
and rushed them to the donor's hospital.  The two pilots would remain at
the airport, and Gail had their phone number in the event of an
unexpected change in schedule.  Retrieval teams are sometimes delayed
when a small hospital's sole operating room must suddenly be used for
emergency surgery.

Tonight, however, everything went smoothly.  As the procedure was
nearing an end, Gail would call the pilots with an estimated departure
time so they could be waiting on the runway with the door open.

As soon as the ambulance reached the hospital, the team from Yale went
straight to the Intensive Care Unit, where the two surgeons studied the
donor's chart and reviewed his history.

So far, everything looked fine.  Gail called New Haven to report that
the donor was about to be moved to the operating room.

In the OR, the anesthesiologist made sure the donor was given the
correct intravenous fluids and medications.  The surgeons then opened
the donor's chest with a sternal saw and inspected the heart and lungs.
This was a critical moment, because certain injuries and diseases don't
always show up on X-rays or tests.  The surgeons had flown to Maine not
only to retrieve the organs, but to determine for themselves that the
heart and lungs were healthy and in good condition.

After the inspection, the surgeons backed away from the table and made
room for the liver and kidney teams.  Two hours later, when it was time
to remove the organs, the heart and lungs would come out first.  But
before any organs were removed, the liver and kidney surgeons had a
great deal of work to do cutting tissues and freeing up blood vessels.

While the others worked, the team from Yale watched and waited.  There
were risks here, too; the donor might lose blood or become unstable.  He
might develop an irregular heartbeat.

His arterial blood gases could start dropping.  Throughout the process,
Gail kept Dr.  Baldwin up to date on the donor's status.

While the Yale team was waiting, one of the hospital nurses asked Gail
who would be receiving the donor's heart and lungs.

Gail replied that they were going to a forty-eight-year-old woman with
primary pulmonary hypertension, that she was a dancer, and a single
mother with a daughter in high school.  In variably, somebody in the
operating room inquires about the recipient, and Gail believes strongly
in answering that question.  In many cases, the doctors and nurses in
the OR have recently been through a painful, losing battle to save the
donor's life.  Of ten, they have spent the previous day trying to
console the grief stricken family.  Although it's too late to help the
donor, a second dramatic battle is now in progress.  These people have
been asked to work all night to save the lives of patients whom they
will never meet, and it's only right, Gail feels, to describe the
recipient in real terms so the doctors and nurses can feel more
connected to this long and difficult process.  When the transplant is
over, the team at the donor's hospital will be told how the story ended.
Even if it ended badly.

Finally, the order was given: "Aorta cross clamp." The aorta was
clamped, which completely stopped the donor's circulation.  Now the
ischemic clock began ticking.  Using scissors, sutures, and clamps, the
two surgeons swiftly freed up the heart and lungs, but without severing
the connections between them.

Dr.  Hammond picked up the organs and carried them to a back table.

Gently, the surgeons placed the still-connected organs in a metal basin
that contained an ice-cold saline solution.  They re moved as much blood
as possible, and inspected the organs again for any anatomical
abnormalities that might not have shown up earlier.  Then, in an effort
to slow down the molecular activity, they cooled the heart and lungs in
ice to four degrees Celsius.

Gail picked up the organs and carefully placed them in aster ile plastic
bag, where they would be kept cool with saline slush.

To further cushion the organs, she inserted this bag into a second one.
She then placed the two bags inside a sterile container, which was set
in the cooler and packed with ice.

The pilots were already on the runway with special clearance to take off
the moment the team arrived.  Before the team left the hospital, Gail
called Yale to let them know the retrieval had been completed.  "We're
leaving the O.R.," she told Dr.  Bald win. "We'll see you in an hour and
a half."

With Gail carrying the cooler, the team walked briskly to the emergency
room, where a waiting ambulance sped them to the airport over deserted
country roads.  They landed in Connecticut an hour later, just as the
sun was rising.

Gail was the last one off the plane.  As she turned around to ensure
that nothing was left behind, she noticed a bottle of champagne that the
pilots had presented to the medical team in honor of Yale's first
heart-lung transplant.  She grabbed the bottle.and carried it off the
plane, together with the cooler.  The champagne is for Claire, she
decided.  Except for the fact that Gail hadn't slept all night, this
woman with the cooler in one hand and the bottle of champagne in the
other looked as if she were going to an early-morning picnic.

Meanwhile, back in the New Haven operating room, I had already been
unconscious for several hours.  Dr.  Baldwin had made a nine-inch
incision in my chest, and was preparing to re move my heart and lungs.
When the ambulance drove up to the emergency room, Gail picked up the
phone and made one last call to Dr.  Baldwin.  "Begin removal," she
said.  "We're here." Dr. Baldwin liked to have the donor's organs arrive
just as the recipient's old organs were being removed.

As she entered the operating room, Gail was greeted by an astonishing
sight: a living, breathing human being, a woman she knew personally,
whose chest cavity was not only open, but completely empty.  In the
space formerly occupied by her heart and lungs, there was nothing at
all.  "I couldn't believe it," she told me later.  "Nobody could.
Although we were all wearing masksj I could see the look of amazement on
everyone's face.

Except for Dr.  Baldwin, none of us, not even the surgeons, had ever
seen anything like this."

Then, as calmly as if he were putting a child to bed, Dr.  Bald win
lowered the new heart and lungs into my chest until they were exactly
where he wanted them.  This required a little trim ming of tissues and
vessels, but the organs themselves were untouched.  Then he began
stitching, first the lungs and then the heart.  He connected the
pulmonary arteries and sewed the atrium of the new heart to my back
atrium wall, which he had left in place.

When all the connections were done, Dr.  Baldwin gave the order to "come
off bypass." I was gradually taken off the heart lung machine, which had
allowed the surgeons to bypass the blood flow to the heart and lungs.
But as often happens, my new heart needed a little assistance in getting
started, and Dr.  Bald win called for the electrical paddles.  When he
applied them my heart jumped, and then started beating on its own.  But
I was still connected to a respirator, which would remain in place for
another day or two.

My new heart and lungs, which had been pale and white because of
preservative fluids and a lack of blood, quickly took on a healthy pink
glow.  When Dr.  Baldwin was satisfied that both organs were doing their
job, he inserted three large drainage tubes in my chest to remove the
excess blood, and attached a wire to my heart in the event that I needed
a pacemaker later on.  My chest bone was wired shut, and the skin was
stapled.  As soon as the surgery was over, I was brought directly to the
ICU, where I would be stabilized, monitored, and cared for during the
next ten days.

The previous night, all but one of my visitors had gone to a nearby
hotel to get some sleep.  Amara remained in the hospital, where she sat
alone in a small waiting area.  She dozed off several times during the
long night, but every now and then, as a doctor walked by, she was
awakened by the sound of a beeper going off.  Each time it happened, she
had the same nervous response:

that this was her beeper, which meant that she and I had to leave
immediately for Baltimore.  Then she'd wake up with a start and remember
where she actually was, and what was going on.

Shortly before seven, a nurse told Amara that the organs had arrived
from Maine and the transplant was about to begin.  A few hours later,
somebody else told her that the operation had gone smoothly.  Ira had
arrived from New Hampshire, and the two of them, exhausted, went out for
breakfast.

I knew none of this, of course.  While this incredible drama was being
played out, I was far away in a remote and mysterious place.

Humpty Dumpty FLOATING EFFORTLESSLY in another world, I drifted over to
Egypt.  I was dressed in white, and next to me was a huge marble column.
But why Egypt?  Was this a dream?  An anesthetically induced
hallucination?  Was I delirious?  Had I died during the transplant and
was now entering a different life?

Egypt began to evaporate as I slowly became aware of a buzz of
disembodied voices calling my name.  "Claire, wake up.  It's over,
Claire." I awakened gently, feeling no bodily or physical sensation
nothing but pure consciousness and a cacophony of voices, speaking,
shouting, proclaiming my name.  My name?

Why my name?  Why weren't they telling me what I wanted to know?

The last thing I had heard was that I might not get the organs.

Was the operation successful?  Please tell me!  Did the transplant
happen?  I need to know.  But with the breathing tube in my wind pipe, I
couldn't speak.  Total frustration!  Although my hands were tied, I
managed to wiggle my fingers in a writing motion.

Finally somebody noticed and brought me a pen and paper.  I scribbled my
question: Did I get them?

"Oh, yes," a voice said.  "Everything is fine."

Thank you, God!  Then back down into the darkness.

Hours later, I awoke in a sweat, flailing around and calling out
deliriously.  The breathing tube was gone now, and I was having my first
heart biopsy.  This was the surest way to detect rejection, but so soon?
The thought of them snipping a piece of my precious new heart, which had
just arrived in its new home and hadn't even been given the opportunity
to unpack, was so alarming that my heart started racing.  My heart was
actually running away, or so it seemed.  I could see it galloping all
over the machines.

Dr.  Baldwin rushed in.  This heart was still his baby; just this
morning he had held it in his hands.  I looked up at him and asked for
some Valium to calm me down.

"I don't believe in Valium," he said.  "I'll give you something better.
A mild suppository.  You'll love it."

Before I knew it the pellet was inside me, throwing me into a vivid
nightmare, except that I wasn't quite sleeping.  My head hurt and I
struggled to break free.  I was trying to scale a high smooth wall with
nothing to hold on to.

Half-awake now, I opened my eyes.  A blank television monitor stared
back from some place above me.  To my right, machines ticked away,
recording the life inside me through a myriad of tubes.  To my left was
a door with a windowpane, and now Amara's face was pressed up against
the glass.  Good!  If Amara can see me, I must be alive.

Everyone who entered my room had to suit up: green gown, green mask,
green cap, green booties, and latex gloves.  They all looked the same,
like green blobs; the only way I could tell them apart was to learn to
read their eyes.  Now a blob with the eyes of my sister came in.  For
some reason I felt myself winking at her before I passed out again.

I awoke to the rattle of a huge contraption being wheeled in by another
green blob.  The machine was on top of me, although I felt nothing.
"We're going to take a chest X-ray," said the blob.

"We'll be doing this every four hours." Every four hours?

Really?  They're taking this rather seriously!

An EKG rolled in with a nurse in its wake.  Its tentacles attached
themselves to me and read the rhythm of my heart.  But could it possibly
detect how frightened I was?  So many questions!  How long would this
new heart keep beating?  How long would these new lungs keep breathing?
Would I reject these organs? Would they reject me?  What was this
rejection I'd heard so much about?  What form did it take?

I had my own ideas about that.  I envisioned the new heart breaking free
of its stitches and popping right out of my body.

I even wondered whether Dr.  Baldwin had sewn it in right.

I could swear it was beating deeper in my chest than my old heart did,
because I could feel it beating against the bed behind me.

"It's just your imagination," a nurse assured me.  "Nothing has
changed."

But I knew my body, and something was different.  When I asked Dr.
Baldwin, he explained that to fit the new heart in, he'd had to position
it farther back than the old one.  It was nice to know I still had some
connection to reality.

As the hours passed, my anxieties increased.  Maybe all the fears I had
pushed away before the operation were catching up to me now, with a few
new ones thrown in.  I had been told, for example, that I wouldn't be
able to cough after the transplant, that some of my nerves would be
severed and I wouldn't feel the familiar coughing reflex.  But I was
coughing quite a bit, which made me wonder: Did they really know what
they were talking about, or were they just pretending so I wouldn't be
alarmed?

Maybe they, too, were afraid.  Although an endless procession of
identical green blobs passed through my isolation, none of them would
touch me.  I concluded from this that if I were touched, rejection would
occur immediately.  Rejection, isolation these were ugly words, and so
were the other terms I kept hearing: Biopsy.  Necrosis.  Transfusion.

Through the glass, I spotted the unmistakable contour of Bernie Siege's
shiny head.  I had remembered that he was at Yale, and although we had
never met, shortly after the surgery, as soon as I was coherent and able
to pick up the phone, I had called him in the hope that he would visit
me.  I knew him from public television, and had been inspired by his
book, Love, Medicine, and Miracles.  In the book, he wrote in support of
the active, questioning, participating patient, who must be prepared, if
necessary, to tolerate a certain amount of disagreement or even conflict
with her doctor.

Although Bernie, too, was covered in green, his gregarious spirit shone
through.  His bald head was covered by a green cap, but there was no
mistaking those twinkling eyes.  During his brief visit, Bernie pointed
out that when you're in isolation, it can be comforting and therapeutic
to see at least a glimpse of the natural world.  There was, I
remembered, a window behind my bed,- with a view of a tree and the sky.
But in typical hospital fashion, I was facing the other way, toward the
television.  As soon as Bernie left, I asked the nurses to turn me
around.

On his way out, Bernie came over to give me a hug.  I instinctively
recoiled: Wouldn't this kick me into instant rejection?

But I trusted this man,-and I was dying for some human contact.

Bernie's hug was wonderful and warm.  I took a deep breath' waited a
moment and didn't die.  The melting process had begun.

For the first couple of days after surgery, I had been frozen, as if in
a block of ice.  Maybe God planned it that way as a form of protection:
if we express strong emotions too soon after surgery, the stitches could
break.  But now, for better and for worse, my feelings were starting to
return.

On the third day after the operation, two green blobs wheeled in an
exercise bicycle.  Hold on, I thought.  Aren't we rushing things here? I
was still on morphine, and just out of major surgery!  But Dr. Baldwin
wanted me to ride for at least a few minutes, and to my amazement, I
did.  What a marvelous feeling to be moving my legs again!

With all my fears, I was grateful just to be alive.  I was also deeply
thankful that a family I had never met had made it possible for me to
bypass death and rejoin the world.  It was a humbling thought, and I
wanted to be worthy of their amazing gift.

When I told Gail how I felt, she suggested that I write to the donor's
family to express my gratitude.  While I couldn't know their identity or
sign my name, one of the nurses had told me that my donor was an
eighteen-year-old boy from Maine who was killed in a motorcycle
accident.  And even without names, I could still write to the family
from my heart, as it were, and Gail would forward the letter.  I did
writeonce from the hospital, and several more times from home.  But
during the first weeks after my transplant I was focused more on the
gift than on the giver.

I learned later that some transplant recipients feel terribly guilty
after the operation because somebody had to die in order for them to
live.  In the midst of their deep and complicated feelings, they
sometimes lose sight of the fact that the donor's death was unrelated to
their own prayers or wishes.  While I was a beneficiary of my donor's
death, I didn't feel responsible for it.

I was sad that a young man had died, and I saw myself as a privileged
guardian who had been entrusted with a special responsibility. I was
living with borrowed organs not literally borrowed, of course, but
that's how it felt.  And like everything borrowed, they deserved special
care.

Because this was the first heart-lung transplant in New England, the
event had generated a fair amount of attention on television and in the
papers.  Total strangers were sending me cards and letters at the
hospital, congratulating me on the transplant and wishing me a long
life.  And now, on the third day after the transplant, two reporters
came in to interview me.  The timing was excellent: I was still
exhilarated from being able to exercise.  When my guests arrived I was
all dressed up in yellow silk pajamas and a pink silk bathrobe, a gift
from Marilyn.  I was so delighted to be moving again that I clowned
around and climbed up on the bike, where I posed for a picture with a
paper cup on my head.

"Now that the operation is over," one of the reporters asked, "what do
you look forward to doing?"

"Regular things," I replied.  "I rode this bike today, and it felt
wonderful to be able to exercise.  When I'm well enough, I'd love to go
biking with my daughter.  I look forward to some of the simple things
that she and I used to take for granted, like walking on the beach
together, skating, going to the theater

all the things I've been too sick to do."

"Claire, now that you've had this miracle, what do you want more than
anything else?"

"Actually," I said, "I'm dying for a beer right now."

As soon as those words came out of my mouth, I wished I could pull them
back in.  I was mortified that I had answered this sincere question with
such a flippant response.  I was also surprised, because I didn't even
like beer.  At least I never had before.  But the craving I felt at that
moment was specifically for it, .

the taste of beer.  For some bizarre reason, I was convinced that
nothing else in the world could quench my thirst.

That evening, after the reporters had left, an odd notion occurred to
me: maybe the donor of my new organs, this young man from Maine, had
been a beer drinker.  Was it possible, I wondered, that my new heart had
reached me with its own set of tastes and preferences?  It was a
fascinating idea, and for a moment or two I rolled it around in my mind.

Then I let it go.  During those early days I had no idea that I would
look back on this curious comment as the first of many mysteries after
the transplant, or that in the months ahead I would sometimes wonder
exactly who was choreographing all these changes in my preferences and
my personality.

Was it me, or was it my heart?

What a week!  On the fifth day, just two days after I was clowning
around with the reporters, I fell into a profound despair, a pit so dark
I was afraid I might never find my way out.  I had been through the
whole cyclethe long wait, the acceptance of death, the miracle of the
transplant, and the first indications that my strength and stamina were
returning.  But now, ironically, a depression settled in so deeply that
I didn't think I could make it.  Suddenly, being in the ICU was
devastating and bewildering.

I didn't know who I was or what I was doing here.

My body, the nurses assured me, was doing fine.  My recovery was on
target, progressing as expected.  But it wasn't my body that concerned
me.  It was everything else.

To start with, I was overwhelmed by these immense and sudden
transitions.  After months of being housebound, incapacitated, and
connected to oxygen tanks, I had been rushed to New Haven for a
dangerous operation.  I had not only survived, but...

three days later, just as Gail had promised, I was actually riding an
exercise bike with the help of somebody else's lungs and heart.  Almost
overnight I had gone from total incapacitation to fully functioning. The
physical changes alone were so enormous And so abruDt that the rest of
my mind, my emotions, my soul hadn't yet caught up.  When you awaken
from a nightmare, you can shake it off.  But it's a lot harder when your
night mare has gone on for years.

Part of what I was experiencing, I now realize, was a post operative
depression that is common among heart surgery and transplant patients. I
wish I had known about this at the time, but nobody at the hospital
mentioned it.  This depression, which typically begins in the ICU within
days of the operation, can demoralize even the most optimistic soul. And
perhaps my despair reflected the flip side of my unexpected serenity on
the eve of the transplant.  "It is not uncommon," writes a psychiatrist
who has studied patients undergoing heart surgery, "for a person to feel
calm while going through what he experiences as a life endangering
situation....  When the danger has passed, however, it is usual for a
wave of anxiety to sweep over the participant."* He could have been
talking about me.

But this was only part of it.  In addition to everything else, I was
also going through the early stages of an identity crisis.  One reason
it may have been so severe in my case is that as a dancer, I have always
been deeply aware of my body.  And now, certain parts of that body big,
major, important partshad been taken away and replaced with somebody
else's.  What did that mean?  Who was this "else"?  And how did he, or
it, fit into me?  I had always known who I was, but who was I now?  I
had been ripped in two and sewn back up, but something was different.

I felt like Humpty Dumpty.  I too had experienced a great fall, a
traumatic breaking apart.  And in my case as well, all the king's horses
and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.  All the
king's horses were the machines that surrounded and monitored me in the
ICU; all the king's men were the surgeons and nurses.  They were nimble
and skilled, and they really did put somebody back together again.  But
that new, reconstructed person just wasn't me.

Although I couldn't yet put this idea into words, I now believe that
what made me so confused and disoriented during my early days in the ICU
were the first stirrings of another presence inside me.  Increasingly in
the months ahead, I would have the feeling that some aspects of my
donor's spirit or personality existed within me.  During that first
week, I knew only that the very center of my being was not fully mine,
that it functioned and pulsated with its own rhythm, and a sense of
separateness and independence.  I didn't understand what was happening
to me but whatever it was, I found it enormously upsetting.

I tried every technique I could think of to get myself back on track.
Meditation.  Visualization.  Affirmations.  But nothing worked.  I
called Gail and told her I felt doomed, that I couldn't go on.  Gail was
very concerned.  She called Barbara Katz, but this time even Barbara
wasn't able to help me.  I was rosins' the will to live.

I felt claustrophobic, as if I were trapped and immobilized in an
environment that was caving in on me.  I'd had the same feeling when I
was pregnant with Amara.  Although I was thrilled to be having a baby,
there was something strange and unknowable about this indeterminate
being inside of me that I couldn't control. This mysterious new entity,
this future baby, was so precious and vulnerable that the only thing I
could do was to take wonderful care of it, which meant taking wonderful
care of my self. After the transplant, I had a similar feeling about my
new heart and lungs: that they were foreign and beyond my control, but
terribly precious and vulnerable.

The dreams I'd had shortly before the transplant, about babies and
pregnancy, now took on an additional layer of meaning.

My new organs had something in common with a pregnancy that I was just
beginning to understand: like a fetus, they constituted a new life force
within me, whose parameters were still unclear.  No wonder I felt
crowded!

Dr.  Baldwin appeared in the middle of my depression, as he had been
doing at all hours of the day and night ever since the transplant.  I
couldn't believe it: if I sneezed at three in the morning, he would
suddenly materialize to say "Bless you." If I awoke from a dream, he was
there.  It was almost as if he, too, was living in the hospital.  Then
one of the nurses told me that in fact he was.  For a week after my
transplant, he slept in his office with his clothes strewn around and
didn't leave the building.

What a relief it was to see him now!  While I had long ago stopped
feeling awe and reverence toward doctors, in Dr.  Bald wins case I made
an exception.  Ever since performing this miracle, he had seemed
infallible and almost God-like to me.  And now, as I looked up at him, I
felt certain that with all of his experience, he could help me.  The
nurses had called me a pioneer, a real bionic woman.  I had a zip-locked
chest with an implanted heart and lungs.  But I also had a mind spinning
with confusion.

"Dr.  Baldwin, you've taken care of my chest.  Would you send in a
psychologist to take care of my head?"

"I don't believe in psychologists," he replied.  This was a shock.  Not
believing in Valium I could understand, but psychologists? He and I
seemed to be on two different tracks.  My feelings, it appeared, were of
no real concern to him.  Only my physical body was real.

"Just keep riding your bike," Dr.  Baldwin said.  "Don't even think
about your head.  Act normal."

"But for me it is normal to think about my head!"

"Listen, Claire.  Stop all this touchy-feely stuff and get on with your
life.  You came to me for this radical procedure, not Bernie Siege!."

I felt shattered when he said that.  I believed, and still do, that the
practice of medicine depends on both the Baldwins and the Siegels, and I
expect that in the not-too-distant future, physi clans and healers will
find ways to combine and integrate these two approaches.  But while we
seem to be moving in that direction, new attitudes take time.  For the
moment, I was a patient in this hospital where Dr.  Baldwin was in
charge.  And now my enormous gratitude toward this man was mixed with
feelings of betrayal.  Although he had performed this difficult
operation, and had done it brilliantly, he seemed to have no idea what
it felt like to be on the receiving end.  What troubled me even more was
that he didn't seem interested in finding out.

In retrospect, I was being unrealistic to expect Dr.  Baldwin to help me
emotionally.  We all see the world through our own eyes, and while Dr.
Baldwin's vision seemed limited to me, he was a well-regarded surgeon
who had alleviated a great deal of suffering for hundreds of people. And
for all my frustration that he didn't have the sensitivities and
concerns of Bernie Siege!, Dr.  Baldwin had saved my life.

When he left the room, I obediently climbed up on the bike and pedaled
like crazy.

"Just act normal," the doctor had said.  But what was "normal"?  I
wasn'normal before, and I certainly wasn't normal now.

Often, when I'm depressed, the worse I feel, the more creative I become.
Sitting on the bike, I resolved that as soon as I was strong enough, I
would start a support group for transplant recipients. Although this
hospital had been performing heart transplants for years, there was no
place for these patients to talk to each other.  Who else could possibly
understand what this operation was like, and all the things it meant?

The workout took the edge off my anger, but I still ached with
confusion.  Being thrust back into life, being reborn after being so
close to death this was overwhelming.  It would have been easier not
better, necessarily, but easier and more natural, if I had simply let
go.  One reason I had been ambivalent about this operation was that
assuming it worked, it would mean dying twice.  After a transplant
you're thrown back into life with the knowledge that some day you'll
have to go through the whole process of dying all over again.

Rationally, I knew that my new life was almost surely a blessing, even
if it didn't yet feel that way.  But emotionally, being re born was
painful and terribly difficult just as being born must be for an infant
leaving the womb and being slapped into its first breath.  The physical
reality of a transplant was so immense that even I, who spent so much of
my life in the world of feelings, hadn't been able to see past the
medical facts to even imagine the enormous emotional ramifications.  I
wished some body had warned me that these issues might come up.

A day or so later I awoke up from a nap to find a man I had never seen
before, who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, sitting across from me.
He introduced himself as Gary Thorpe, and he told me that five years
earlier he had undergone a heart transplant at this same hospital.  When
he returned for his periodic checkups, Gail would ask him to talk with
some of the newer patients, just as she would later ask me to do the
same.

Gary seemed to understand what I was feeling, and his presence in my
room was enormously meaningful and comforting for the simple reason that
he was alive and talking to me.  Although this man was a total stranger,
I suddenly felt closer to him than to anyone else on this planet.  He
knew what I knew.

Within minutes a surge of hope was moving through me.

Gary knew exactly what it felt like to have your heart pulled out of
your body and replaced by the heart of a stranger.  And not just any
stranger, but somebody whose involuntary and unchosen death had given
you life.

"What was it like when you got out of here?" I asked him.  I couldn't
imagine how I would possibly cope when it came time to leave the
hospital.  I could barely imagine leaving the ICU, where, for all my
recent unhappiness, I felt safe and protected.

The doctors and nurses were always looking in on me.  Maybe that's why
they called it the ICU.  I see you!  How could I ever survive outside
the womb?

"You just take it day by day," Gary said.  "Very slowly at first, but it
gets better all the time.  You'll see."

After Gary Thorpe's visit, my depression lifted.  As soon as he left, I
again thought about a support group.  I was so grateful to this man that
I wanted to give others what he had given me.

There was, after all, a growing community of people who were having
heart or heart-lung transplants, and we obviously needed each other.
Spiritually and emotionally, nobody else could truly understand us.

Now I had even more reason to be thankful.  Right after the surgery, Dr.
Baldwin sent my old heart and lungs over to pathology, where one of the
doctors estimated that my lungs had suffered so much damage that if it
hadn't been for the transplant, I would have been dead within a month.
My heart was even worse; the right side was in total failure.  It's a
good thing Gail had summoned me in May; June might have been too late.

 At the time, I didn't fully understand that a transplant involves a
simultaneous adjustment to two major changes: the loss of your own vital
organs, and the concurrent acceptance of new ones.  And in case these
changes aren't complicated enough, they can only occur when a life is
lost a life the recipient knows little or nothing about, except that a
piece of it was transferred to her own body to give her life.  These are
enormous issues, and although the operation is over in a matter of
hours, an introspective recipient could spend years trying to deal with
all the ramifications of the transplant.

And what about those missing organs?  As diseased as they were, my old
heart and lungs were a part of me.  We knew each other like old friends.
Although they had caused me pain and suffering, we had been through a
lot together.  I read somewhere that when sick people are given a
theoretical choice among different illnesses, most of them prefer their
own.  Your illness may not be pleasant, but at least it's yours.  It's
familiar, and you know how to cope with it.  It's not that I seriously
missed my old heart and lungs or my old illness, for that matter.  But
getting used to not having them was harder than I expected.

It also took longer.  Years after the transplant, I was walking down the
street one evening when the thought occurred to me that for forty-seven
years my life had revolved around the fact that my heart was defective.
I had danced anyway, but even so, much of my activity-and my identity,
especially during child hood, had centered on my heart murmur.  Suddenly
I remembered: I don't have that heart murmur anymore.  Only then did it
hit me with full force: I don't even have that heart anymore.

All my life I had watched the pained and contorted faces of the many
doctors who listened to my old heart with their stethoscopes.  I always
wondered: What are they hearing?  How bad is it?  Now, after the
transplant, I had the strange and liberating experience of watching
doctors listen to my heart without a frown.  In the hospital, some of
them would actually smile.

Toward the end of my stay in the ICU, Ira called from New Hampshire to
say that he was driving down for another visit.  A few minutes later, a
nurse came in to say that my ax-husband was in the waiting room.

"That's impossible," I said.  "I just spoke to him, and he won't arrive
until tonight."

"I don't know, Claire.  He's out there, and he says he's your ex
husband."

As I was trying to imagine who this could possibly be, David, my second
ex-husband, came into the room.

For all I knew, when you woke up with someone else's heart in your body,
forgetting an ex-husband or two wasn't all that unusual.  Maybe it
happens to everyone.  It's a good thing there are only two of them, I
thought.  At least I think there are only two.  In my current state,
anything seemed possible.

When David walked in, my heart was actually palpitating.  We had been
out of touch for years, following our bitter divorce.

Seeing him, I felt a sudden rush of mixed memories the arguments and the
hurt, but also the love and the passion.  His showing up here was the
first emotional shock to hit my heart since the transplant, and I
started to worry that it might lead to rejection.

Then I realized that I was actually feelin, with my new heart.

This heart, which less than a week ago was beating in another person's
body, was now feeling my feelings.  And it seemed to be feeling them
more powerfully than my own heart had, at least in recent months.  Maybe
this new heart could withstand more

emotion.  Maybe it was more resilient.  Maybe my old heart could no
longer contain sharp, intense feelings.  In recent months my emotions
had become faded and washed out, less red-blooded, more ethereal, and
spiritualized.

It was hard work, getting used to this new me.

Stayin' Alive THREE AND A HALF weeks after the transplant, Dr.  Bald win
determined that I was ready to leave the hospital and move into a
condominium a few miles away.  This, of course, was a dramatic, tangible
sign that I was no longer in any immediate danger.  But once again my
emotions lagged behind the rapid pace of my physical recovery.  For all
my ambivalence about hospital life, I was terrified at the prospect of
leaving this high-tech sanctuary my new haven, so to speak and venturing
out into the dangerous world of potential infection.  I imagined an army
of hostile germs who were well trained and heavily armed.  They were
lying in wait just outside the hospital walls, preparing to launch a
murderous assault on my immune suppressed body.

And if the germs didn't get me, there were other, more basic perils to
worry about.  Would my new heart continue beating, or would rejection
set in the moment I left the building?  Would my lungs continue to
function, or had they been protected since the transplant by some
invisible.  magic hospital shield whose power would dissipate as soon as
I stepped outside?

Despite these fears, I was increasingly optimistic about the future.  As
the days passed, I had become progressively stronger.

My gait became steadier and more confident, and every day I walked a
little farther in the hospital corridors.  For the first time in ages,
my nails took on a fresh pink coloring.

But when I took my first shower and accidentally dropped the soap, I
experienced a moment of real panic.  Parts of me were still functioning
on my old, pretransplant operating system, and I knew from bitter
experience that if I bent down to pick up the soap, I might be risking a
bad attack of angina.  I was about to leave the soap on the floor when I
realized that this was a left over fear from my previous life.  When I
scooped it up with no ill effects, I felt a rush of surprise and
jubilation.  Another victory! Day by day, just as Gary Thorpe had
promised.

My mood was improving, too.  Ever since I had arrived in New Haven, just
about every conversation, every question, answer, and comment had been
understandably serious and important.  Now, as my strength increased, so
did my hopes.  Given a taste of health, I longed to laugh and have some
fun.  My spirit was returning!

Looking ahead to my release from the hospital, Amara had been reading
through a list of do's and don'ts for recovering heart transplant
recipients.  "Mom," she informed me, "you can have sex in about six
weeks, about the time you can start driving again." I burst out laughing
not only at the linking of these disparate activities, but also because
for years, every time I had tried to talk to Amara about sex, she became
mortified and immediately changed the subject.  But she seemed to have
no hesitation about discussing my sex life.  Now it was Mom's turn to be
embarrassed.

On my final day at Yale, the hospital officials arranged a press
conference to discuss my transplant.  When Gail asked me to say a-few
words about my experience, I was thrilled.  She came to my room to
collect me, and laughingly shook her head.  "Claire, would you fix your
hair, please?  You look like a porcupine!"

Now that I was rejoining the world, here was another big adjustment I
would once again be responsible for my appearance.

Simply being alive was no longer enough.

At the press conference, which was held in a crowded conference room, I
expressed my deep and sincere appreciation to the medical staff.  When
Dr.  Baldwin described how well I was doing, I felt enormously proud.
His comments took on an additional weight in this public setting, and
between his positive projections and the attentive gaze of the audience,
I began to feel more confident about leaving the hospital.  As he spoke,
I looked down at my pink, healthy nails and resolved never to wear nail
polish againa promise I soon broke.

I was surprised to hear Dr.  Baldwin describe my recovery as
"unremarkable." At first I thought he was kidding, until I realized that
he was referring only to the physical aspects of my recuperation, which
had indeed gone smoothly.  But I wondered how a doctor could so easily
separate a person's body from the rest of her being When the press
conference was over there was a farewell reception in my honor, where
Gail discreetly gave me a sip of the champagne she had removed from the
plane on the morning of the operation.  When all the goodbyes were said
and all my tears were cried, she wheeled me outside my first moment out
of doors since Bob, Barbara, and Amara had rushed me to the hospital.
Back then, on the final afternoon of my previous life, the skies were
darkened by rain clouds and illuminated by a rain bow. Today, fittingly,
the sun was so bright I had to squint.

Slowly and deliberately, I inhaled a deep breath of fresh air into my
new lungs.  It hurt a little, but this was a pain I was happy to feel.

The condominium I was moving into would function as a kind of medical
halfway house; I would stay there for about three months, returning to
the hospital for weekly checkups.  I would be sharing the apartment with
a live-in housekeeper, and for the first three weeks I would also have
round-the-clock nursing care.  *

During my summer in the condo, I had the oddly exotic experience of
living a more or less normal life, without oxygen, pain, or major
worries.  There were a few minor restrictions: to minimize the risk of
infection, for example, I was told to stay away from animals and avoid
going into crowds.

These limitations seemed even less restrictive in view of the bold and
generous new freedoms I could now enjoy.  For the first time in ages, I
could eat almost anything I wanted: "Order a pizza if you like," the
doctor had said.  Amazing!  I had expected a million dietary
prohibitions after the transplant, and I was prepared to obey them all.
But compared to being sick, this was well, a piece of cake.

Being able to eat freely was such a joyous change in my routine that at
first I could hardly believe it.  I stuck mostly to fruit, grains, and
vegetables, but shortly after leaving the hospital I treated myself to a
hamburger in a restaurant, which came gar

* I was extremely fortunate to have all of my transplant-related
expenses covered by the Massachusetts Transplant Fund, a charitable
endowment that was established in the mid-1980s through voluntary
"checkoff" contributions from taxpayers on their state tax forms.  The
fund was authorized to reimburse Massachusetts residents for "any and
all expenses related to a medically necessary transplant," and because I
was one of the first recipients to apply for help, the subsidies were
very generous.  What my insurance company didn't cover, the Transplant
Fund did.

with an olive on a toothpick.  The hamburger was exciting enough, but
what I really craved was that little green olive!

I was so accustomed to avoiding salty foods that my initial instinct was
to push it away.  But I love olives, and I must have stared at this one
a good five minutes before I finally surrendered.  I half expected the
earth to open up and devour me, but nothing happened.  Freedom!

Now I could eat like a regular person even if that person wasn't quite
me.  To-my surprise, I developed a sudden fondness for certain foods I
hadn't liked before.  I had always enjoyed sweets, but now I was eating
a lot more of them especially Snickers Bars and Reese's Peanut Butter
Cups.

I was also showing a strange new affinity for green peppers, which I had
never liked and had always removed from my salads.

After the transplant I found myself adding green peppers to every
conceivable dish, although I had no idea why.

And when I was finally allowed to drive again, my car practically
steered itself to the nearest Kentucky Fried Chicken.  This made no
sense at all, because I never go to fast-food outlets.

But for some inexplicable reason, I felt a craving for chicken nuggets.
Like my earlier yearning for beer, this sudden desire for chicken would
be explained only later.

In the condominium, I quickly settled into a comfortable daily routine.
While Dot, my housekeeper, prepared breakfast, I started the morning
with yoga, meditation, and twenty minutes on the bike.  During the day
I'd walk around the neighborhood, talk on the phone, read a book, or go
shopping with Dot.  I was a little embarrassed at how quickly I grew
accustomed to having a full-time housekeeper, and how easily this luxury
came to feel like a necessity.  Before I knew it, I was relying on Dot
so completely that I almost forgot how, as recently as a month ago, I
had managed to survive with very little help, even on days when I could
barely stand up.

Within a couple of weeks, I started a support group for transplant
recipients.  Gail was enormously helpful, especially when it came to
recruiting people who had either undergone heart or heart-lung
transplants, or were waiting for one.  About sixteen people attended the
initial meeting at my condo.  All of us were happy and relieved to
discover that we were not alone, that other people in our situation
faced some of the same problems we did.  I was especially pleased that
after years of receiving help from family, friends, and medical
professionals, I was finally able to give something back.

The support group grew quickly, and before long we split into three
smaller sections: one for recipients; a second section for those who
were waiting for transplants; and a third group for family members and
close friends of the people in the other two groups.  By this time I had
moved back to Boston, but I continued attending and leading the monthly
meetings.  I even took a course on how to lead a support group, and
shared my new knowledge with other volunteer leaders.

While I looked forward to these meetings, they were usually accompanied
by a certain amount of sadness.  Almost every time we met, there would
be news of yet another friend or acquaintance from the transplant
program who had died since our last meeting.  Sometimes the cause was
post-transplant rejection, but more often we heard about somebody who
had been waiting months for a transplant, and whose heart finally gave
out before a suitable donor could be found.  As we were well aware,
there are never enough organ donors for all the people who need them.

When a patient died, the doctors and the hospital staff tried to protect
us from knowing about it.  They asked us to help newer patients by
visiting them in the ICU, but when one of these patients died, they kept
it secret.  We resented this terribly. We knew perfectly well that all
of us, whether pretrans plant or post, were living on borrowed time.

One of my regular visitors at the condo was the new man in my life.  Kal
was a Boston psychologist whom I had known and liked before the
transplant, and now that I was feeling stronger, our relationship
started heating up.  But despite Amara's reminder that sex was
permissible six weeks after the operation, the prospect of being
intimate with Kal frightened mein much the same way, I suppose, that men
who have undergone a heart attack or bypass surgery are often afraid
that resuming sexual activity will land them back in the hospital, or
worse.  I could just imagine myself having to stop in the middle of a
passionate embrace to say, "Excuse me, but I think my heart is
rejecting!" It didn't sound very romantic.

My apprehensions about sex didn't mean I wasn't interested.

Now that I was feeling more human and less like a robot, erotic thoughts
and feelings had once again begun to stir within me.

And I was definitely interested in Kal.  I just wasn't sure I was ready
for this next stage, and I didn't want to push my luck.  I was so sick
before the transplant it was hard to believe I could go back to being a
normal, active adult without having to sacrifice at least one important
pleasure in return for my newfound health.

One day, as Kal was driving up to see me, a strange question crept into
my mind.  Although I hadn't thought much about my donor, I was acutely
aware that I was now living with a man's heart.  And I wondered: Is it
conceivable that this male heart might affect me sexually?  Probably
not, but who knew for sure?

My new heart did seem to be affecting my personality.  I noticed that I
no longer felt lonely, even when I was by myself.  On weekdays, when I
was separated from Amara and my friends, I didn't miss them much.
Sometimes I had the feeling that some body else was in there with me,
that in some intangible way, my sense of "I" had become a kind of "we."
Although I couldn't always detect this extra presence, at times it
almost felt as if a second soul were sharing my body.  I wondered about
these feelings, but I still wasn't ready to take them seriously. Because
they didn't fit into any category I was aware of, I dismissed them.

But this new male energy did seem to be affecting me.  Until the
transplant, I had spent most of my adult life either in a relationship
with a man or hoping to be in one.  But for years after the operation,
while I still felt attracted to men, I didn't feel that same need to
have a boyfriend.  I was freer and more independent than before, as if I
had taken on a more masculine outlook.

Most menat least the ones I've known just don't crave the closeness of
an intimate connection the way women do.  They may enjoy being in a
relationship, but they don't feel incomplete without one.  For the first
time in my life, I didn't either.

It took years after the transplant before I was finally in an extended
relationship with a man.  I was still meeting men and enjoying their
company, but generally, as we grew closer, some thing in me seemed to be
pushing these men away.  I occasionally wondered if my male heart might
be jealous, as if this presence I was feeling was reluctant to share me
with anyone else.

My personality was changing, too, and becoming more masculine.  I was
more aggressive and more assertive than I used to be, and more confident
as well.  I felt I knew things that men knew, things I hadn't known as a
woman and that seemed to have come to me from some other place.  It was
a subtle feeling, as though I'd been entrusted with some secret
knowledge that I didn't completely understand.

Even my walk became more masculine.  "Mom," said Amara, "why are you
walking like that?  You're kind of lumbering, like a football player."
Then a dance friend said, "Claire, you're really strutting." It was, I
realized, the stride of a virile young male, the kind of strut that John
Travolta used in Saturday Night Fever, with that swaggering
self-assurance and that smile, walking in rhythm with everybody stopping
in their tracks to watch this youthful, vital man coming down the
street.  Then I remembered that the theme song of that movie was,
appropriately enough, "Stayin' Alive."

Whatever was going on with this new masculine energy, it wasn't limited
to my walk.  Or perhaps my new walk was a metaphor for the way I now was
moving through the world without feeling restricted.  I felt a new power
that I associated with masculinity, strength, and vibrancy.  A certain
feminine tentativeness had fallen away, and was replaced by a new
confidence.

Years after the operation, my cousin Sharon said that when she first
hugged me after the transplant, I felt different from before. "You were
giving off heat," she said.  "Like the heat you sometimes feel when you
hug a man."

Sometimes people ask me whether my sexual preferences have changed since
the transplant.  While this hasn't happened in any overt way, I am often
drawn to women whom I, as a woman, don't feel are especially attractive.
The women whose looks I liked before the transplant tended to be tall,
slender, and dark, but after the transplant I also found myself looking
at women who are shorter, rounder, and blonder as if some male energy
within me were responding to them.

And while I've always been a confirmed heterosexual, after the
transplant, at a conference in Boston, I became friendly with a
beautiful blond Dutch woman.  We spent time together, and when the
conference was over I invited her to stay at my place for a couple of
days.  It was all very innocent on my part, or so I thought, but as soon
as we were alone she made it clear in several suggestive ways that she
was interested in a sexual relation ship.  I declined her invitation,
but her surprise at my lack of interest made me wonder what kinds of
signals I had been sending out without realizing it.  I also had several
dreams in which I was living with, or getting married to, a woman. These
images puzzled me, and in the dreams I often asked: Why am I with a
woman when I'm a woman?  Shouldn't my partner be a man?  But these
questions were never answered.

As for Kal, our first time together after the transplant went rather
well, despite my awkwardness.  I was nervous and excited, and there was
a fair amount of starting and stopping as I felt my heart beating faster
than I was accustomed to.  But Kal was right there with me, encouraging
and reassuring me.  He had always been kind and considerate, and before
the transplant, during some of the worst days of my illness, he had come
to my house to bathe my chilly hands and feet with warm water, or to
cook me an occasional meal.  More than any man I've known, Kal was a
caretaker.

During my recuperation, it looked as if he and I might have a future
together.  But as soon as I moved back to Boston, he ended the
relationship.  He said he just wasn't capable of making a long-term
commitment, and while that may have been true, I believe there was more
to it.  Some people, and Kal was one of them, are fulfilled only when
they're caring for someone who needs them in certain basic ways.  As
soon as I was healthy again, Kal could no longer play that role.

I was terribly sad when Kal left, and I wondered: Am I ever going to get
this right?  Alan had wanted me as long as I was healthy; Kal had been
with me as long as I wasn't.  Somewhere, I told myself, there's a man
who will love me in sickness and in health.  And while I didn't need
that man in the same pressing way I used to, it would still be awfully
nice if he turned up.

In the early fall, just before I returned home to Massachusetts, a woman
I had met at the hospital invited me to join her in temple on Rosh
Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  Sitting in the service, so many emotions
filled me and found their way through my body to my tearing eyes.  I
missed Amara, who was now back in school after the summer break.  I
thought of my mother, whose thirteenth anniversary of her death was the
previous day.  And I was filled with bittersweet memories of gains and
losses.  I never thought I'd be here today to remember it all.

What would this new year bring?  In Jewish tradition, Rosh Hashanah
marks the season when God decides who will live and who will die.  Given
my recent history, it was incredible to think that exactly a year ago,
I, of all people, had been inscribed in the Book of Life.  Apparently
God had wanted me to live.  And while I didn't want to be presumptuous,
I hoped that after everything I had just been through, He would extend
my lease a few more years. I put on a dress with my scar showing above
the neckline.  The transplant scar was a long vertical line down my
upper body, and when it reached my stomach it intersected with another
scar from the three enormous drainage tubes that Dr.  Baldwin had put in
my chest at the end of the operation. There I was, sitting in synagogue
with a huge cross engraved on my body.

I was proud of my scars, and I wore them like a war wound.  I was
grateful to be alive, and especially grateful to be here, in this
service, where I could feel and express my appreciation for being alive.
I knew that in the future, my scar would serve as a kind of balance, a
reminder of those difficult and painful years of illness. It was still a
little hard to believe, but it seemed reasonable to hope that those
times might be gone forever.

Shortly after I left the condominium and moved back home, I had the most
unforgettable dream of my life.  In this dream, which I described at the
beginning of my story, I'm in an open, outdoor place with grass all
around.  It's summer. With me is a grown man is tall, thin, and wiry,
with sandy-colored hair.  His name is TimI think it's Tim Leighton, but
I'm not sure.  I think of him as Tim L.  We're in a playful
relationship, and we're good friends. It's time for me to leave, to join
a performing group of acrobats.  I start to walk away from him, but I
suddenly feel that something remains unfinished between us.  I turn
around and go back to him to say goodbye. Tim is standing there watching
me, and he seems happy when I return.

Then we kiss.And as we kiss, I inhale him into me.  It feels like the
deepest breath I've ever taken, and I know that Tim will be with me
forever.

I awoke from this dream absolutely exhilarated.  When I breathed Tim
into me, it was as if I had breathed in new life.  I also felt I had
finally integrated the new heart and lungs within me.  But even more
important, I knew, somehow, that the young man in this dream was my
donor.  I couldn't prove it, of course.

But sometimes you just know, and this was one of those times.

Naturally, I was eager to verify this information.  But the transplant
program at the hospital observed a strict code of confidentiality, and
Yale wasn't unique in that respect.  In 1988, every American hospital
where organ transplants were done maintained an ironclad rule that the
donor's identity could never be revealed to the recipient, and vice
versa.

I called Gail anyway.  While I knew she couldn't reveal my donor's name,
I hoped she would tell me whether the name in my dream was correct. When
I described the dream and asked her about Tim L., there was a momentary
silence.

"No, you can't know that," she finally said.  "I'm not supposed to
discuss this with you.  Please, Claire, let it go.  Even if you succeed
in tracking down the family, you would just be opening a can of worms."

"What do you mean?"

"You can never predict how the donor's family will respond.

People have all kinds of unexpected reactions.  If you're curious about
the donor, that's only natural; I would be, too.  But please let it go.
This whole topic is too emotional and unpredictable."

Although I was terribly disappointed by Gail's response, I agreed to
drop the subject.  But other dreams, and other changes, soon forced me
to reconsider that decision.

A few WEEKS later, Tim appeared in another dream.

I'm a man who has changed into a woman.  I'm driving fast, speeding
around a series of hairpin turns and loving it.  Suddenly I can't make
one of the turns, and If I cross the hih way, over the divide and into
the oncoming traffic.  It's freeing, , like flying in the air, a little
like the ending of Thelma and Louise as the car drives off the cliff I'm
no longer confined by the road, and I feel boundless.

The next thing I know, I'm with a whole new family.  They're preparing
for their daughter's wedding, which is tomorrow.

Their daughter is youn, blond, and attractive.  Now I'm a man again, and
I tell my new family that I have to leave on my plane to meet a girl who
is waiting to marry me back where I came from.  Then I realize I
shouldn't go to her, that it's not right, that I should stay here.

I'm surrounded by my new family.  They describe how they pulled me out
of the wreckage after I had crashed.  I tell them I'm grateful, that
there is nothing to fear in death, and that I remember nothin from the
moment I flew off the highway.  I don't even know whether I died.  It's
like forgettin a dream af teryou wake up.

I didn't really understand this dream until I realized that the "I" in
the dream wasn't necessarily me.  Unlike the inhaling dream, this one
seemed to be taking place not from my perspective, but from Tim's. The
fact that "I" was both male and female in the dream seemed to support
this idea.  As far as I could remember, I had never had a cross-gender
dream before the transplant.  Until now, I had always been a woman.

The dream made more sense when I examined it from the perspective of my
donor.  It seemed to be about Tim's decision to stay on in this strange
new world that is, in my body.  He flew over the dividing line of the
highway, but he was also crossing a larger boundary between life and
death, or perhaps between one life and another.  Although he felt a
strong pull to go back, he made a conscious decision to stay.

The dream was also about my own ambivalence about staying in my new
world the same ambivalence that came up during my severe,
post-transplant depression.  At the time, I was struggling with whether
to give up or to jump back into life with my new, altered identity.  In
the dream, I reaffirmed the decision I had already made in my waking
life to stay alive.  And Tim  or at least the Tim I was imagining in my
unconscious mind  had made a similar choice.

And what was being celebrated in this dream?  A marriage, the union
between a man and a woman.  This seemed to be a symbolic reference to
the integration of Tim's heart and lungs into my body and soul.  We were
joined.  Tim was now part of me, and I was part of him.

The idea that a transplant recipient might have a dream from the donor's
perspective is an intriguing one, and it brings to mind a story I heard
later from another recipient.  This man said that he never remembered
his dreams, except for this one, which occurred right after his
transplant.  He dreamed he had died, but that when you die, you don't
really die; you just enter somebody else's body.  As the dream began, he
went into a darkened state, where he saw himself being covered by a
sheet.  His family and friends came to him, and he knew he had to pray
to bring in the light.  The room became brighter and brighter until he
found himself in a bright, strange place where everything was completely
different.  He found this experience so frightening that describing it
years later still made him anxious.  His dream, like mine, seemed to
have been experienced from the perspective of the donor's heart, a
wandering entity that suddenly found itself in an unfamiliar world.

Which is exactly where I ended up in my waking life in an unfamiliar
world.  Four months after the transplant, I finally moved back home. But
while I was returning to the same apartment, the same furnishings, and
the same friends, I was astonished to find that nothing from my old life
was entirely recognizable.  The four months I was away seemed more like
four decades.

My friends and relatives seemed foreign to me now.  I still knew them
and loved them, but who on earth were they?  It was like attending your
thirtieth high school reunion and seeing familiar faces tucked under
layers of aging.  You recognize these people, but you have no idea who
they really are.  At the time, I thought it was like having amnesia. But
I now believe that I still hadn't figured out who I was after the
transplant, which made it difficult to reconnect with anybody else.

My bumpy reentry reminded me of the movie RoboCop.  The main character
is a former police officer who, after being shot, is transformed into a
robot in whom some remnants of the original person still exist.  When
RoboCop returns home, he finds the same house and the same people he
knew when he was fully human, except that everyone and everything seems
slightly off.

I had a similar reaction when I came back, including the part about
feeling less than fully human.

To some degree I had to reestablish my relationship with every
significant person in my life, starting with Amara.  She had been loving
and attentive while I was dying, but now that I was alive and
increasingly well, she and I had some adjustments to make.  During my
illness, a lot of emotion and anger in our relationship had
understandably gone unexpressed, and for a long time I had neither the
strength nor the spirit to really engage her.  If a problem wasn't easy
to resolve, we simply deferred it until some future date which neither
of us ever expected to see.

But that unlikely future had now arrived, which meant that various
normal but long-suppressed tensions could finally be expressed.  A few
days after I returned home, Amara and I had a major blowup I no longer
remember why and soon we were really yelling at each other.  During a
particularly heated moment, I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror.
Suddenly our fight didn't matter; all I could think of was My God, check
out this lung power!  I started laughing, and I quickly turned away so
Amara wouldn't think I was mocking her.

But when she noticed my reflection in the mirror, Amara started
laughing, too.

"Watch out, kid," I said, "because now I can out yell you!"

It was wonderful to be able to fight with her, and to reestablish a more
complete relationship with Amara that didn't center around my illness.
It was also gratifying to be able to use my voice again, and to express
what I was feeling.

Although we had some difficult moments, it was amazing to see how our
relationship matured and solidified after the transplant. Now that I was
healthy, Amara once again felt free to criticize me, just as she used
to, and to use her dry wit to mock me.

My daughter the rationalist especially enjoyed teasing me about
meditation, my New Age inclinations, and my tendency to see the world in
psychological terms.  If I started describing a dream, she would roll
her eyes and say, "Here we go again." If I dared to offer a metaphysical
comment or a mystical interpretation, she'd come back with, "Why do you
say that, O Spiritual One?" Amara has always been less ethereal than I,
and funnier, too.  She can be cutting without being cruel, and even when
the jokes were at Mom's expenseand they usually were I generally enjoyed
them.  It was wonderful to see that after all this time, Amara was also
getting her spirit back.

During my illness, we had both lost touch with our earlier years
together, when we were happy and free.  As a child, Amara loved to dance
with me, but around the time I became sick she stopped dancing and took
up sports.  Then, in a moving gesture of empathy and identification
although she would never have agreed with that interpretation she
developed asthma and began using an inhaler before, and sometimes even
during, her lacrosse games.  About a year after the transplant, when it
was apparent that my survival was no longer in doubt, Amara no longer
needed the inhaler.  She also started dancing again.  She had even
broken up with her boyfriend shortly before the transplant, although she
and Danny got back together after the operation.  The parallels between
our lives were quite remarkable.

It was only in retrospect that I could fully appreciate the enormous and
depressing impact that my illness had had on her.

Through no fault of her own, Amara had essentially been robbed of her
youth.  She had longed to be a normal kid without having to worry about
a mother who was always in bed with an oxygen tank.  As my primary
caretaker, Amara had been more concerned with helping me stay alive than
with the various emotional and social complexities of being a teenage
girl

not to mention a teenage girl in a single-parent household with no
siblings and a dying mother.  While other kids her age were dealing with
the standard adolescent manifestations of identity and rebellion, Amara
was learning about bank accounts, writing checks, and paying bills.  She
was forced to think about questions like, If Mom dies before  I finish
high school, where will I live?

Now, at the age of sixteen, during this delayed adolescence, it was
finally safe for her to separate from me.  It was as if my new lungs
enabled Amara, too, to breathe easier.  She occasionally exploded at me
as she slowly began to trust in my strength and my resilience.  But if
her anger was sometimes loud and intense, so was her love.  She hugged
me hard, picked me up and whirled me around, dancing and laughing.  What
a delight for both of us, this new knowledge that I wasn't about to
break in two, that I wasn't about to die.

"Thank you for two things, Mom," she told me after the transplant.
"Thank you for living, and thank you for trusting me when you were
sick."

It wasn't until well after the transplant, when Amara left for college,
that she could finally put those terrible times behind her. She went to
Colgate University in upstate New York, where, on snowy days, the
students would slide down the enormous hills on cafeteria trays.  At
first she held back, but when she finally tried it, the freedom and the
sheer exhilaration of those rides brought a sense of closure to a long
and stressful period in her life.  Mom was finally healthy, and Amara
was finally free.

A few months earlier, at her high school graduation, we had both been in
tears.  This was the day I had lived for and prayed for, the event I had
so fervently hoped I would be able to attend.

Sitting in the audience, almost overcome by emotion, I recalled Mary
Gohlke's words of encouragement when I had called her shortly after
learning that PPH was a fatal disease: she had advised me to set goals
for myself, and I had.  My long-term goal had been to stay alive until
Amara's graduation, and now, in credibly, I had reached it.  Knowing
that I hadn't reached it alone, I silently gave thanks to God for
keeping me alive, sustaining me, and allowing me to reach this glorious
moment.

While my relationship with Amara was rich and engaging, the rest of my
reentry to civilian life was more tenuous and problematic. I felt like
an alien who had just been dropped on this strange and unfamiliar
planet.  What was I doing here, and where did I fit in?  And how could
people actually live like this?

Judging from what I saw on television, human society was even more
violent and fragmented than I had remembered.  But why?

I didn't get it.  I've since heard that astronauts sometimes experience
a similar kind of bewilderment and incredulity when they return to their
home planet and become reacquainted with its shocking and turbulent
fury.

I now seemed to feel things more deeply, as if my new heart were indeed
capable of more intense emotions.  When I was happy, I was often elated;
when I was depressed, the pain was severe.  I was also more sensitive to
other people's suffering.

Once, at the supermarket, a checkout clerk cut herself on the edge of a
paper bag and I literally felt her pain.  "Oh, that must hurt!" I said
to her.  As I walked away I thought to myself, You've been through a
heart-lung transplant and this got your attention?  But it did.

People have asked me in similar situations, "Why are you so concerned?
That's trivial, after what you've been through." But it's not trivial.
The transplant was real, but so is a paper cut.

Pain is pain.

For a long time after the transplant I couldn't tolerate violent images
or scenes of brutality.  The nightly news became unbearable, and movies
were often too disturbing to sit through.  The first movie I saw in my
new life was The Last Temptation of Christ, and while I had loved the
novel, the film version seemed so brutal that I walked out after a few
scenes.  Even A Fish Called Wanda, a well-made comedy, struck me as so
cruel and mean spirited that I couldn't enjoy it.

It wasn't until Field of Dreams, a few months later, that I enjoyed
going to the movies again.  Judging from the title, it should have been
ideal for meand it was.  For one thing, the movie takes dreams
seriously, even when they seem far-fetched or difficult to understand.
For another, Field of Dreams is very respectful toward different forms
of reality, including strange or "impossible" events that can't be
explained in conventional or scientific ways.  Finally, the movie
suggests, as I was increasingly it, coming to believe, that the
boundaries between life and death, or between this life and other
possible lives, might not be as permanent or as immutable as we
generally assume.

The same could be said of the movie Ghost, which I saw a few months
later and which scared me half to death.  Ghost tells the story of a
good man who is murdered, but whose spirit is term porarily unable to
leave this world.  Eventually his ghost finds a medium and communicates
through her, and at one point even takes over her body.  But until then,
the ghost's attempts to communicate with the familiar world around him
are excruciating.

His body, which he still inhabits, is now invisible, but he has acquired
new powers, including the ability to pass through walls by leaning into
them.  That's the image that really got to me, because just a few weeks
after the transplant, I'd had a similar experience in a dream.

In this dream I had walked right through a wall.  I stood up against it,
and gently, very gently, leaned my body in and passed right through to
the other side.  It was easy and painless, as if my body had no density.
I was euphoric when it happened, from having effortlessly passed through
a barrier that had always seemed impenetrable

, - like the boundary between life and death.  I was no longer a mere
mortal; I had cheated death!  After years of seeing myself as weak and
incapacitated, I could breathe again, walk again, and even ride a bike.
Why not walk through walls?  All my fears had evaporated.  I could do
anything!

On awakening from the dream, I immediately thought of the transplant,
where I had crossed over briefly to the other side of life and then
returned to this world, which now seemed both foreign and familiar.  I
felt like the ghost had in the movie, before he found the medium: having
crossed the boundary, I could no longer relate to the people around me.
I didn't know it then, but this theme of crossing over a major divide
and then returning would become a common theme in my dreams.

I was alone when I saw Ghost.  Watching the film's depiction of life on
both sides of the hitherto impenetrable wall of death, I felt that I,
too, was now living on the other side.  I felt ghostlike myself that
night, as if I weren't real, as if I had no body.  As I got into my car
I was shaking.  Whose ghost was I?  That was easy: the ghost of Tim, the
boy who had died.  In the dream, and again after watching the movie, I
was experiencing the transplant from two different perspectives: that of
the living recipient, and that of the deceased donor.

 When I arrived home from Ghost I was crying hysterically.

Fortunately, Amara was there.  "Just hold me," I said.  I soon calmed
down, but what a terrifying night.  Never before had a movie affected me
so deeply.

After the transplant, and especially after the "ghost" dream, I was far
less frightened of death.  Now that I had looked death in the face, it
was no longer a stranger to be feared.  Having been to the brink, I now
saw death in a more detached way as a natural part of life, rather than
a terrible misfortune.  Death was moving and even profound, but in most
circumstances it wasn't inherently tragic.

In my attempt to rejoin the world, I was surprised at how difficult it
was to reclaim the level of spirituality I had attained during my
Illness.   was eager to preserve the lessons I had learned then,
including forgiveness, a deeper connection with myself, a sense of
composure, and a trust that the universe was unfolding as it should. But
my journey back to this world as an earthly presence was extremely
difficult.  Now that I was healthy and strong, I could almost feel my
spirit receding.  Although I tried to retain it, some of my spiritual
energy was slipping away.

I was coming down to earth, my old world, with all its mundane problems.

While I continued to meditate, I now added a brief, daily morning
prayer, "Thank you, God, for today,n that helped put everything in
perspective.  Together with the meditation, these five simple words
allowed me to move from this physical world, with all of its numbing
details and problems, to at least a moment or two of clarity,
appreciation, and remembrance.  I still repeat this prayer every
morning, and at other times during the day, when these words bubble to
the surface of my consciousness, I pause to remember where I used to be,
and to acknowledge where I am now.  And I feel grateful.

Not every aspect of my readjustment was painful, difficult, or
frightening.  Some changes, especially the physical ones, were
thrilling.  I remember running to catch a bus; it was almost a block
away, and for the first time in ages I didn't stop to think about my
condition.  I just ran.  When I was on the bus, and I realized what I
had just accomplished, I was elated.  I could actually do this!

If I was surprised, other people were shocked.  Often they just wanted
to touch me, as if to affirm that my recovery was real.  Sometimes they
wanted to commend me for my "courage,"

and while I enjoyed the ego-boost and appreciated the compliment, I
didn't feel I deserved it.  Is there anything courageous or brave about
making the only possible choice that will save your life?  When you're
drowning, you grab any hand that's offered.

To me, bravery is a spontaneous decision to save somebody else's life
when your own is in danger.  And yet I was proud of the transplant, and
of my persistence in getting through it.

Some people seemed to expect that I would be hooked up to machines, or
using a wheelchair; they couldn't quite believe I was walking around, or
that I didn't look like a frail old lady.  I could understand how they
felt, because I couldn't quite believe it myself.

Overall, my physical recovery was more powerful, more successful, and
more free of complications than I ever thought possible.  After my
illness,- I would have been more than satisfied to return to anything
near the condition I was in before I developed PPH. But I went far
beyond that; after the transplant I was healthier than I had ever been
in my life.  Because of my old heart condition, I had never felt
entirely free to run, to play, or even to dance without limits.  But now
I noticed that without any fanfare, these lifelong restraints had
quietly disappeared.

It was remarkable: two years after the transplant I found my self, at
the age of fifty, with more stamina and energy than I'd had at
twenty-five.  I felt like the man in the old joke who asks, "Doctor,
after this operation, will I be able to play the violin?"

"Absolutely," says the doctor.  "I guarantee it."

"That's wonderful," the man replies, "because I never could before."

What's more, I was granted the unique privilege of bearing witness to my
own progress in a vivid "before" and "after" comparison. Back in 1979,
several years before I developed PPH, I had performed the lead dance
role in a local production oklahoma!  Thirteen years later, and well
after my transplant, the music director and the choreographer from that
production learned up again to put on the same play.  When I dropped by
the audition to see my old friends, they suggested I try out for my old
part.  Strictly as a lark, I got up on stage.  I was flattered when they
offered me the role, but the idea of my playing Laurie in the famous
dream sequence seemed a little ridiculous.  Laurie is very young, and I
thought I had been too old to play her last time!  But my friends kept
pushing me, and the more I thought about it the more the prospect
excited me.  Finally I said yes

not only because it appealed to my ego, but also because this was a
thrilling and unusual opportunity.  I haven't checked the Guinness Book
of World Records, but I'm willing to bet that very few dancers have ever
performed the same role with two different hearts!

After the transplant, I simply had more energya lot more.

I now felt a new and unfamiliar restlessness, which still hasn't gone
away.  I.was always moving around, looking for somewhere to go or
something to do in a ceaseless attempt to stay busy.

Sometimes Amara had to remind me to get enough rest.  For all my love of
parties, I used to go to bed fairly early.  But after the transplant I
seemed to be turning into a night person.

So maybe it's not surprising that I found myself spending more time with
younger people and less time with friends my own age.  I still had my
social group from before the transplant, hilt increasinly I was
attracted to people who were younger than I was.  I also noticed that
the men who were flirting with me were considerably younger than they
used to be.  Perhaps it was my heart, and this new presence that seemed
to come with it.  Or perhaps I was unknowingly projecting my increased
libidoa change that has affected almost every transplant recipient I've
known, especially if they received the heart of a younger donor.  Once,
in the supermarket, I saw a tabloid whose headline read Woman Gets New
heart, Goes Sex Crazy.  It was ridiculous, but it did contain a grain of
truth.

As I slowly grew accustomed to this new me, I felt funny being out in
the world as a fifty-year-old woman who carried within her the heart and
lungs of an eighteen-year-old boy.  How weird and amazing it was to have
something so close to me, so known to meand at the same time so
mysterious.  How was this heart affecting me?  Who was this new being I
had become?  And what did it mean to be the recipient of a miracle that,
well within my lifetime, had been the stuff of science-fiction novels?

On the most basic level, it meant I had to be extremely careful. Because
of the antirejection drugs I was taking every day, I always had to be
vigilant about potential threats to my immune system.  When I returned
home from New Haven, I lived in terror of my first sneeze.  Ever since
childhood I had been susceptible to colds, which generally developed
into flu, bronchitis, or other complications.  Now that my immune system
was suppressed, even a couple of sniffles could expand into a
life-threatening illness.

So I took precautions.  I stayed away from people who were sick with
infectious diseases.  I washed my hands more often than before.  I was
especially careful around animals, and also around children, who often
carry germs.  A friend of mine, a heart recipient who had been a real
risk-taker in her former life, returned home from the hospital and
learned that some of the students in her children's class had come down
with the chicken pox.  Although her own children were healthy, at her
doctor's suggestion she moved them temporarily to her mother's house,
just in case.  The doctors and nurses at Yale had made it very clear to
all of us: we could never be too careful.

It was about a year after the transplant before I caught my first cold,
and when it finally came I was petrified.  I'm going to die from this, I
thought.  Sure, it's only a cold now, but a cold can turn into the flu
or bronchitis, and from there I would experience a steep and precipitous
downhill slide.

But nothing like that happened.  I had a runny nose and a sore throat,
and two days later it was over.  Instead of feeling worse, as I used to,
I quickly got better just like normal people do.

It could have been due to the antibiotics I was taking every day, but
the other people in my support group took these same medications, and
some of them were often getting sick.  I still catch the occasional
cold, but ever since the transplant knock on woodI seem to have
developed a new and welcome resilience.  These days, a cold is just a
cold.

On one of my periodic checkups back in New Haven, I told Dr.  Baldwin
that I was no longer plagued by many colds, or by my once-frequent
episodes of bronchitis.  "That makes sense," he said.  "During your
transplant, we cut out part of your bronchial tubes and gave you part of
his."

So that explained it.  Or did it?  In any case, it was weird to hear
that I had been given even more of my donor's body than I had known
about.  Dr.  Baldwin would have laughed at my own hypothesis, which was
that perhaps my donor's heart and lungs, and his vitality, were helping
me to heal so quickly.  If, by some miracle, I ever made contact with
his family, I hoped to learn whether my donor had been as resilient and
as resistant to infection as I now appeared to be.

It took years before I realized all the ways that my health had
improved.  Before the transplant, I had suffered from severe migraine
headaches with the classic symptoms: memory loss, visual auras, and
one-sided numbness almost like a miniature stroke.  Over the years I had
tried a variety of medications to relieve these headaches, but none of
them had done the job.  The migraines used to occur about once a month,
and when I was younger, I was always afraid of getting one before or
during a performance.  It finally happened during a production of A Mid
summer Niht's Dream, where I forgot a few of my lines and had to bluff
my way through by making up some new ones on the spot.

After the transplant I never had another migraine.  This may have been
due to the cyclosporine, or perhaps even my age, because migraines often
fade away as you get older.  Not every change I experienced was
necessarily a direct result of the transplant, but because organ
transplants are relatively new, there are still many unanswered
questions.

I had suffered from low blood sugar all my life, but after the
transplant this problem also disappeared.  So, too, did my life long
aversion to humidity.  Until the transplant, I couldn't stand to be in a
hot, humid environment; I would feel weak and dehydrated, as if all the
energy were draining out of me.  But today I can dance for hours in
places where, in my previous life, I could hardly have breathed without
air conditioning.  Before the transplant I never used to sweat, which
may explain why I had so much trouble with humidity; my body failed to
release enough moisture.  After the transplant, I began to sweat
profusely during hot weather or strenuous exercise.  It sounds funny,
but because I wasn't used to sweating, or to body odors brought on by
exercise, I had to find a new and more powerful deodorant.

One of the nicest changes of all was that I no longer felt cold all the
time.  I was finally getting enough oxygen.  During my first winter back
home, I actually enjoyed going for walks as long as I was dressed for
the weather.  Every October, as the leaves started falling from the
trees, it was reassuring to know that I would no longer be spending the
long months between November and April preoccupied with hating winter,
or wondering when spring would finally deign to make an appearance.

And while I still fantasized about some future move to a warmer climate,
for now, at least, I could survive the New England weather, and even
enjoy it.

Several other changes were the result of the medications I was taking.
The steroid prednisone is known to cause increased facial hair, and my
eyelashes grew so long that when I put on my glasses there seemed to be
little room left for my eyes.  With my nose hair and ear hair growing in
thickly, I wondered whether I might at some point have trouble with my
breathing or hearing.

Fortunately, my facial hair-stopped growing after a while, but the hair
on my head came in fuller than ever, and it grew so fast in other places
that I now needed electrolysis on a regular basis.

So not every change I experienced was directly related to this other
presence within me.  Some of them, I'm sure, had other explanations such
as almost dying, or being reborn.  Other changes came from the
medications I was taking, and still others might have happened anyway as
I got older.  But I find it hard to believe that these other
explanations can account for all the things that now seemed different in
my life.

The more aware I became of my changing preferences and personality, the
more I wondered about my donor.  Had he been strong and resilient?  Was
he, by any chance, hyperactive?  If so, that might explain my new and
almost frenetic energy.  What was his medical history?  Would I ever
learn anything about him?

And how, if at all, did my actual donor correspond with the Tim of my
dreams?

THE EXHILARATION I felt during and after my first dream about Tim
carried over into several other dreams.

In a curious reversal of conventional religious symbolism, I dreamed
first about rebirth and resurrection, and only later about death and
crucifixion including one nightmare where I actually pulled nails out of
my hand.  But before these destructive images began, I went through a
Year of Prace when I focused mostly on the thrill of survival.  It was
as if the exalted magic of my miraculous operation was working as an
anesthetic, keeping the negative images away.

In one of my first dreams after the transplant, a man I cannot see is
sitting behind me.  He talks with me and admires me, but he doesn't
allow me to turn around and look at him.  When I finally do turn around,
I notice that his hands and face are scarred.  But I don't find him ugly
or repulsive at all.  As I caress his hands and face, I find him
beautiful.

The man with the scars was a teacher, although I wasn't yet ready to
learn his lesson.  For the first year or so after the transplant, I
couldn't allow myself to face the emotional pain of the operation or its
nightmarish aspects.  Later, I came to realize that the only way I could
come to terms with the transplant was to focus not only on the miracle,
but on the darkness as well, including my long illness, the trauma of
the operation, and my changing identity.  In other words, I had to turn
around and accept my scars.

Eventually I did, with my dreams leading the way.  As soon as that first
year had passed, my dreams became noticeably darker and more violent,
with frequent images of bloodshed, war, and other horrors.  In one dream
I was hiding under the bed in a house that had just been invaded by
enemy forces.  Right above me was a horrible screeching noise, which
sounded very familiar.  When I awoke, my first association was the
surgical saw that had sliced through my skin at the beginning of the
transplant.

Although I had been in a far-off world during the operation, maybe on
some distant level I had heard that noise.  In the dream it was
terrifying.

In another nightmare, I was trapped in a cavelike pit in the ground,
part of a large group of naked, thin bodies.  All of us were huddled
together, awaiting the end of the world in this ghastly place that was
reminiscent of Auschwitz.  Soon all the air would be gone; it was just a
matter of time.  The image was so awful that I still shiver when I think
of it.

When these nightmares persisted, I knew I couldn't ignore them.  These
images were coming from some deep place within me, a place I obviously
needed to explore.  In my former life, Rick Pisani had once suggested
that if I ever wanted to work on my dreams in depth, the man to see was
Robert Bosnak, a Jung ian analyst who taught a seminar on dreams at the
Jung Institute in Boston.  But when I contacted the institute to
register for Bosnak's class, it was already full.  I then called Bosnak
directly to ask if he could take me on as a private client, but he said
he was completely booked and had no openings.

"Could you recommend somebody else?" I asked.  "I had a of our
discussions were full of sadness or anger, but always, the sense of
being understood made it worthwhile.  We could tell each other anything
including private feelings and speculations that we wouldn't share with
outsiders, who would probably think we were crazy. We talked of
transplant life and death.

In different ways, we all believed that receiving a new heart had
affected and even changed our identities.  Robbie and I were both struck
by the fact that the participants in our group often referred to
themselves not as "recipients," but as "transplants"as in "I am a
transplant." One man, who had previously undergone open heart surgery,
with its baffling array of bypasses that resembled the spaghetti of the
Los Angeles high way system, insisted that a transplant was a
qualitatively different experience.  The rest of us agreed: one
procedure allows the patient to achieve his normal life span, while the
other implies that this life span has been extended beyond its normal
limits.

This may explain the strong identification with the operation it self. A
transplant is not only a transformation of your identity;

for a while it becomes your identity.

Not only was I finding a voice for my innermost feelings, but so were
the others.  We were being helped in this process by a man who himself
had not experienced a transplant, but who was readily accepted into our
exclusive little club as if he had.

All of us felt we had finally been granted permission to express the
terror, the guilt, and the devastation caused by this horrendous ripping
apart and being put back together.  We were a lit the society of Humpty
Dumpties.

Being able to talk about these painful subjects was a tremendous relief,
because almost everybody in our lives, from doctors and nurses to
relatives and friends, felt that we should be eternally grateful for
this miraculous gift.  And while we were grateful, it was terribly
frustrating that nobody who hadn't gone through a heart transplant
seemed to understand how the depths of our gratitude met the dark places
in our soul during the long, complicated healing process.  If we were to
survive, we needed to understand all the forces battling each other
within us, from the euphoric ecstasy to the plunging terrors.

All of us, we discovered, were resentful when well-meaning friends and
relatives insisted that we ought to be happy and grateful for our
transplants, as if it were that simple.  What did they know about the
pains and problems we had gone through?

Of course we were grateful.  We all knew people who had died before or
after a transplant, or whose recoveries were terribly difficult.

But we didn't always feel grateful.  Much of the time we felt rotten, or
confused, or frightened.  Sometimes our gratitude was obscured by the
terrible fears and traumas we went through after the transplant, which
most of us could discuss only in the privacy and intimacy of this little
community.  As one participant put it, "I'm so damn sick of people
telling me I'm lucky to be alive.  I feel terrible!  I'm still getting
over a period when I would have had to rally just to die."

Another member described herself as "the nice little woman at dinner
parties who understands what kind of conversation people want to hear.
They don't want to know I'm sick.  No matter what I'm feeling, I have to
keep the conversation light.

You can't imagine how many times I've been on the phone talking
nicey-nicey, and then I've hung up and felt like killing my self.  All I
can think of is that I must have had a hell of a good time in my
previous life."

And a third: "Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing by having the
transplant.  Last night I saw a TV show about animals who were injured,
who were kept alive until they could be slaughtered.  Sometimes I feel
like that.  If I have to spend the rest of my life preoccupied with
staying alive, what's the point of living?"

Another theme in our conversation was that all of us had some sense
after the transplant that we were not alone.  And each of us had at some
point spontaneously experienced our new heart as an "other" with whom
some form of communication was taking place.  In a couple of cases, this
sense of being with another person was so strong that the recipients
became obsessed with learning the donor's identity.  When this proved to
be impossible, the recipients became frustrated and angry at the
transplant authorities.

With other participants, the feelings of another presence within were
more diffuse and took the form of people talking to their new hearts
directly, and sometimes even aloud, during moments of crisis.  One man,
for example, would tell his heart prior to a biopsy, "Remember, now, we
have to cooperate.  If we fight, it will kill both of us." To a greater
or lesser extent, each of us saw the new heart within us as representing
a separate being. Sometimes a discussion between two members would
suddenly take on a different tone, as if their two hearts were
interrupting to carry on their own discussion.

Only one participant, a social worker named Mary, claimed that she never
experienced her new heart as "other." But within the confines of our
tight circle, Mary spoke movingly about how, when she experienced an
episode of rejection shortly after her transplant, an image came to her
of two spirits who were fighting inside her body.  "One of them was me,"
she said, "and the other, I guess, was the donor, who didn't want me to
have this heart.  I know my new heart came from a woman, and this
struggle between us felt like a catfight."

During this period, Mary dreamed that her dead grandmother appeared to
her with a message: "Just give something away and you'll be all right."
Mary took this to mean that she had to stop fighting for control of her
heart and start dealing with the fact that it wasn't entirely hers. When
she did, her health improved.

Even so, Mary told us, she occasionally spoke directly to her heart in
blunt and unequivocal terms: "You belong to me now.

You were somebody else's heart, but now you're mine." These were
provocative words from a woman who insisted that nothing unusual or
mysterious was going on within her.

Thomas, who was in his forties, took on a completely new personality
after the transplant.  Before the operation, from all accounts, he had
been shy and introverted.  But when he joined our original support group
a few months after his transplant, Thomas, who now wore a baseball cap
all the time, had turned into a big, exuberant, talkative child, like a
nine-year-old boy in a man's body.  His wife would bring him to the
meetings, and he was completely dependent on her.  Fortunately, Thomas's
extreme regression was only temporary, and during the course of our
meetings he regained his old maturity as if he were growing up right in
front of us.

Thomas had been told that his new heart came from a teenage boy who was
killed in New York.  From the start he assumed his donor had been black,
although this was never confirmed.

Thomas had come from a prejudiced background, but after the transplant
he became far more comfortable with black people.

He even became enamored with one of the hospital nurses, who looked a
little like Tina Turnerthe first time he had ever been attracted to a
black woman.  He started identifying with blacks in general not only
African Americans, but Africans as well.  Thomas was surprised to find
himself affected by a news report about civil strife in Ethiopia.  al
read that blacks on both sides are shooting each other," he said.
"They're even shooting at the people who are bringing in relief supplies
to save other black people who are dying of starvation.  Before the
transplant I wouldn't have paid any attention to a story like this.  But
now it enrages me."*

Thomas told us that his vocabulary had changed since the transplant, and
that he had started swearing in front of his wife, which embarrassed him
terribly.  His language reminded him of his army days, when his speech
had been full of vulgarities.

Given these changes, I was surprised that he didn't seem very interested
in trying to learn more about his donor's identity.

"Sometimes I think about this person whose heart I have," he said, "but
I have to put it out of my mind because it scares me.  I sometimes
picture the doctors standing over his body, waiting for that moment to
take his heart, and a couple of hours later putting it in me.

"I won't go so far as to say that two people exist in me, but I have
been changed.  It might be different if I had received a new kidney, but
the heart has spiritual, psychological, and emotional attachments.  I
believe my donor's spirit is still around, and in that sense he's still
alive."

Mario, an energetic, blunt-spoken former shipbuilder in his early
fifties, had received the heart of a man half his age.  Before * This
statement brings to mind the remarkable story of a Grand Dragon in the
Ku Klux Klan who, after learning that his new kidney came from the body
of a black donor, responded by joining the NAACP. the transplant, Mario
had suffered from painful episodes of angina, but despite all the agony
he had endured, and although he didn't think of himself as especially
religious, Mario wouldn't agree to the transplant until his parish
priest assured him that it didn't violate Church doctrine.  When organ
transplants were first performed, Mario had been opposed to them:
"Fixing things is fine.  But replacing things?  I didn't think that was
right.

And yet I wanted to stay alive."

After the transplant, Mario and his wife noticed a number of changes in
his habits.  He had never liked bananas before; now he did.  He had
rarely bothered with dessert; he now loved sweets.

And while he had previously been fastidiously neat, after the transplant
he was far more relaxed.  Mario's wife found these changes perfectly
understandable: "Of course he's different.

There are genes and energy in him from somebody else's body.

Those things affect you."

In at least one respect, Mario's experience was the exact opposite of
mine: although he knew very little about his donor, he was convinced he
had received the heart of a couch potato, and that this new heart was
slowing him down.  "I have the feeling my donor's heart isn't strong
enough to take care of me.  I'm sure he was a professor or somebody who
sat around a lot and probably didn't care for my kind of life.  I've
always been on the go."

An enthusiastic dancer, Mario reproached his donor for ruining his dance
rhythms, and he said he was teaching his new heart how to dance.  "I
lost my ability to dance," he told us.  "It's never fully come back to
me.  I've even yelled out in public a couple of times that I didn't know
how to dance that he didn't know how."

Mario also believed that his new heart had undermined his former skill
at horseshoes.  He loved the game, and until the transplant he had been
very good at it.  But he was now dismayed to find his tosses were going
sideways instead of end-over-end, and that some of his throws were-
falling short.  Here too he would openly rebuke his heart for screwing
up.  "You dumb bastard," he'd say.  "You can't even reach the pit."

About a year after his transplant, Mario had an experience that really
shook him up.  He and his wife were visiting relatives in the Boston
area, and on Easter Sunday they walked into a little church where, to
his astonishment, Mario felt completely at home.  Even the priest looked
familiar, and Mario instinctively knew his way around.  He led his wife
upstairs to a certain pew, as if he had been there often.

"Have we ever been to this church?" he asked her.

"Never," she replied.

"Well, I have," he said.

"I never knew what part of Boston my guy was from," Mario told us, "but
that morning I had no doubt that this was his church." Mario found the
experience so unsettling that he re turned to the little church three
more times until he felt comfortable.  "I believe there's another spirit
in me," he concluded, "and that we finally bonded together and somehow
made a life for both of us."

Mario was especially grateful to Robbie for helping him deal with a
disturbing image that kept haunting him.  Ever since the transplant,
Mario sometimes saw the image of a face suspended just below the
ceiling.  After one of our meetings, Robbie met privately with Mario and
asked him to bring the face into view.

When it appeared, Robbie guided Mario in bringing the image down, closer
and closer to his own face, until the two faces seemed to merge.  After
this, the mysterious face made no further appearances, and Mario felt
that he had fully integrated the new organ into his body.  It reminded
me of my own experience after the inhaling dream, except that in Mario's
case the merging had been brought about deliberately.

Dorothy, a short, friendly-looking woman with dark hair, was the only
other member of our group to have had a heart-lung transplant.  But
although this made for a bond between us, our post-transplant
experiences were totally different.  While my physical recovery had been
close to perfect, Dorothy had experienced serious problems with her new
lungs right from the start.  But throughout her long ordeal, she was
positive, courageous, and optimistic.  In Dorothy's situation I might
have felt jealous of me, but although this was the kind of group where
jealousy and other awkward feelings could be expressed safely, Dorothy
seemed to feel only love and support, not only for me, but for the
others as well.

Because the problems were confined to her lungs, Dorothy was able to
experience her new heart as benign.  In one particularly vivid dream,
she traveled through her own blood vessels, a voyage she described to us
in glowing terms, like a National Geographic special.  "This was my way
of getting away from all those needles and tubes in the hospital," she
said.  "Nobody else could go there.  When I reached my heart, it was red
and pulsating, soft and beautiful.  It's a great feeling when you're in
there and you know it's you, and that your heart is really working."

Dorothy had been told that her donor was a man, and when things went
wrong she- thought of her new lungs as still belonging to him.  She felt
betrayed by her donor because his gift had failed to improve her health.
"I probably should feel grateful," she said, "but when something goes
wrong, I want to say to him, 'I thought we had a deal!  If your lungs
had been better, I wouldn't be going through this.  You were supposed to
be so great you could give somebody else a life.  But look what you're
doing to me!  "'

Dorothy's troubles mounted until the only thing that could have saved
her was a second transplant.  But in a decision we could all understand,
she didn't want to take her struggle any further.  "I think it's
actually worse the second time.  People think it should be easier, but
it's not.  This time I'm totally aware of everything I'll be going
through.

"A few days ago," she told us, "they didn't think I would make it.
Everything was so peaceful and I was very accepting.  Then I woke up,
connected to these machines.  I wanted to say, 'Wait, leave me alone!
I've been preparing for this, and I'm not afraid.""

Dorothy soon became too sick to attend our meetings, and when she died,
it was terribly sad for all of us.  Shortly after her death, our
research group ran out of steam.  There were other problems, too, but
the death of a member we all loved was a huge loss that we never get
over.

Lorna was in her early twenties' with blond, curly hair.  She was the
youngest member of our group, and, at four years and counting, the
longest survivor.  She was also the only recipient whose donor had been
slider than she was, which may be why Lorna felt more mature after her
transplant.  But she was understandably bitter that her youth had been
stolen away.  "When my friends and I turned twenty-one,,, she told us,
were all having parties.  I just wanted a heart.  After the transplant,
my friends dropped away.  People my age couldn't relate to me anymore,
and they didn't like the way I looked." Lorna had gained a lot of weight
from the medications, and her face was quite swollen.

She was one of the first women anywhere to have a baby after a heart
transplant.  The doctors had warned against it, but Lorna and her
husband had decided to take that chance.  Lorna knew her donor had been
a woman, and she wanted desperately to tell her donor's parents that she
was taking good care of their daughter's heart.  But the transplant
authorities wouldn't allow her to contact them directly, which was
terribly frustrating for her.

Lorna had heard from the social worker that the donor's family had
donated the heart after learning that the potential recipient was a
young mother with a baby.  "I believe my donor was, too," Lorna said.
`'I wrote to the family, and although they'll never know my name or
where I live, I let them know that my little girl was now four, and that
I recently had another baby.  I thought it might bring them some
happiness to know I was making good use of my new heart."

Of all the heart recipients I've known, Lorna had the most terrifying
experiences.  After her transplant, she was confronted with ghostly
images that were so spooky and unearthly that they kept her awake at
night.  She desperately needed psychological help, but the hospital had
no program to provide it.  This was another major concern in our group:
while society had invested millions of dollars in the advanced training
and technology that are necessary to perform these medical miracles,
when it came to the emotional and psychological ramifications of this
dramatic, life-saving surgery, recipients were essentially on their own.

One afternoon, Robbie asked Lorna about the ghostly figures she had been
seeing:

"It started out with images in my mind."

"What kind of images?"

 "Images of a woman and a man carrying a young child.  Then I see this
woman lying in bed on the respirator, with her parents around her.  I
just know they're her parents.  That image comes during the day.

"Then it started happening at night when I couldn't sleep.  I haven't
slept much since the beginning of all this.  When every one is asleep
and I turn off the TV, I look in the doorway and see the image of a
white shadow.  It's the image of a woman.  I believe it's the donor."

"What does the shadow look like?"

"It comes toward me, never touching the ground.  It has no feet and no
face, just a cloudy image that doesn't frighten me.  It comes very close
to me, and then it disappears."

"Does it have an intention?"

"I can't figure it out.  But sometimes there are two more images.
They're dark, and they scare me.  They have knives or a gun or an ax or
something, and they want to hurt me.  They keep coming closer and
closer.  They come in the doorway and stand over my bed, as though
they're trying to tell me that I shouldn't be there, or that I shouldn't
have lived.  The friendly white cloud is trying to tell me something,
and the dark images are trying to scare me.

"Finally I just said, 'Leave me alone!" I said this a few times, and now
it's back to just seeing the white image again."

"Can you say more about the identity of these black beings?"

"They're hooded, and they don't really have a face.  No definition of
arms.  I always get a chill when I see them.  They never touch the
ground; they're always in the air.  They come from my daughter's bedroom
across the hall, or from the hallway.  They come quickly to the door,
and then very slowly from the door way to the bed."

"Is there any other sensation besides seeing?  Do you hear any thing?
Smell anything?  Feel anything?"

"No, I just have a sense that they want to harm me, or warn me about
something.  They stand above the light.  If I turn on the light they'd
go away.  But I freeze.  I can't move.  I want to yell, but I can't make
any sound.  Sometimes I turn to my husband and ask, 'Did you see that?"'

"And has he ever seen them?"

"No, he never has." She sounded disappointed.

"And is their presence as tangibly real as this chair, or is it an other
kind of reality?"

"Another kind.  I can almost see through them."

"So they're phantoms?"

"Yes, like a ghost."

At the very least, Lorna's harrowing experience reflected her ambivalent
feelings about the transplant.  It had given her life, and she was truly
grateful for the new heart.  At the same time, it appeared that the
demons wanted her to die, which may reflect the part of Lorna that felt
unworthy of this gift.

Of all the participants in our group, I was closest to Joseph, a
handsome musician in his early forties with curly red hair and a beard.
After years of living with debilitating coronary disease, he finally
received a new heart, and joined our original support group a few weeks
later.  Although Joseph wasn't much of a talker, his warmth and humor
made him an instant favorite.  His wife came with him to our meetings,
and we all became fond of this warm and loving couple.

Or so we thought.  Within a few months, however, Joseph was coming to
meetings alone.  His wife left him six months after the operation, and
he was miserable.  Although none of us had seen it coming, what happened
to Joseph wasn't unusual.  As I had already learned the hard way, a
long, serious illness can put an enormous strain on even a good
relationship.  Some recipients go through years of marital problems, and
both parties agree sometimes explicitly, but often without saying so
directly to keep the marriage going at least until after the transplant.
In other cases, the recipient undergoes a significant personality change
after the operation, which can mean that the entire relationship has to
be reconstructed no simple matter.  As I became-increasingly aware of
the painful details of other people's breakups, there were times when I
was almost relieved that my relationship with Alan had ended when it
did.

The task of readjusting to the world after a heart transplant is
stressful and complicated enough without the additional burden of trying
to cope with the effects of a traumatic breakup.

Joseph, too, had received the heart of a much younger man.

He played baseball, and after the transplant he injured his arm more
than once because he now threw with such strength that his body couldn't
handle it.  Not surprisingly, Joseph's dreams, like some of mine,
expressed the theme of a youthful heart trapped in an old body that
couldn't keep up.  In one dream, he was a young player, riding the bus
to a game with his teammates.

But when the bus arrived and everybody ran to the field, Joseph was left
behind; his body was so old and crippled that he had to crawl off the
bus.

Later, in a striking series of three dreams, Joseph was able to
visualize the successful integration of his new heart.  In the first
dream he was in a wheelchair, unable to walk.  In the second, he was
behind the wheelchair, pushing it along the road.  In the third and
final dream, he folded up the wheelchair and put it away.  A dream
sequence rarely comes out so clearly, but what a wonderful feeling when
it does.

Because Joseph's transplant was in late October, he was in the ICU over
Halloween.  That night, Joseph dreamed that he begged to be let out of
the hospital in order to go trick or treating. It was, perhaps, an odd
request for a man in his forties, but this was a dream, where anything
is possible.  The hospital all authorities allowed him to go as long as
he didn't stay out too late.

The next morning, the nurses were astonished at Joseph's output of
urine, and one of them jokingly asked if he had been drinking beer all
night.  "I must have peed about a gallon," he said.  "It was as if this
kid went out drinking, and as a result I was peeing all morning."

As soon as he awoke that morning, Joseph wrote, "He wants to come out. I
could feel his force, holding my fists, running his course." This was a
common feeling among usa claustrophobic sense of being held down while
some living force within us was desperately trying to escape.  I had
this feeling in the hospital, when I felt my heart wanting to leave the
confinement of this strange new body.

About a year after Joseph joined the group, and after we had been
friends for a while, our relationship became romantic.  Because of what
we had both been through, this was far from a typical courtship.  On our
first date, for example, we met for cyclosporine-and-milk cocktails.
Apparently this was how heart-transplant recipients went out for a
drink.

Although Joseph lived in Vermont, he often drove to Boston to see me. On
one of those trips, we went out to dinner with his sister and her
husband.  Joseph's brother-in-law was driving, and Joseph and I were
sitting together in the back.  Our driver had a bad cold, and at one
point he sneezed several times in a row.

When we heard those sneezes, Joseph and I didn't need further
instructions.  Like most transplant recipients, we each carried a
surgical mask, just in case.  And now, without a word, we instinctively
reached for our masks and strapped them on.  We must have been quite a
sight, sitting there silently in the darkened backseat, holding hands
and wearing those little white masks.  When Joseph's sister turned
around to ask him a question, she could barely suppress  a scream.

It was comforting and even romantic to be with a man who had exactly the
same health concerns I did, which led to at least one other amusing
moment when we had breakfast together at a little neighborhood diner.
Like me, Joseph took more than a dozen pills each morning, and even more
at night.  After placing our orders, we began lining up our pills, just
as we did every morning.  By now this routine was so much a part of our
lives that we continued talking while our fingers did the counting and
sorting.  When the pills were in place, we casually took our plastic
plungers, which looked like little syringes, and started injecting
cyclosporine into our juice.*

When I finally looked up, our waitress was staring at us in open-mouthed
dismay.  Just as I was realizing what this scene must have looked like,
she said, with real worry in her voice, "Excuse me. You guys aren't
planning to shoot up, are you?"

We began explaining that we weren't drug dealers or even drug users, but
that we were taking all these pills because both of us blah blah
blah....  But I had the impression that our words rang false, and
understandably so.  Trying to convince a nervous waitress that one of
her healthy-looking customers had under gone a heart transplant was
already asking a lot.  But two customers?

While I normally took my medicine at home, every now and then I had no
choice but to swallow my various pills on a plane.

* This experience is now outdated, as cyclosporine is available in
pills.

or in a hotel dining room, which always made me feel as if I were on
display.  To be able to go through this routine with an other person
made an enormous difference, and to go through it with someone I loved
well, that was marvelous.  Joseph and I really saw each other as soul
mates.  Or perhaps, in our case, heart and soul mates.

With all the medications we were taking, not to mention our respective
transplants, we often joked about the "chemistry"

that existed between us.  We had each received the heart of a much
younger person, and in our more intimate moments there was an amazing
vitality between us, as if there were four souls in the room instead of
two.

Joseph and I had a deep spiritual connection that was some times
reflected in our dreams.  One night I dreamed about a lit the boy who
was drowning and sinking peacefully into the sea without a struggle.
Each breath became more shallow, until finally the boy let go.  The
people on the shore became frantic.

They wanted to save the boy, but they couldn't find him in the water.
Meanwhile, Joseph stood next to me on the dock, quietly confident.  The
two of us seemed to share and know something the others didn't, which
allowed us to remain calm and peaceful.

Then Joseph extended his foot in a magical, elongated way, and made
contact with the boy beneath the water.  He tapped his foot lightly on
the boy's chest where his heart had been beating.

Then everybody tried to save the boy.  They grabbed him from the sea and
began to resuscitate him.  Now the hard part began.

Out of that peaceful letting-go, the drowning boy was thrust back into
life, gasping for air and finally beginning to breathe again.

There were two important themes in this dream.  First, I loved Joseph
because he was the only one who understood, as I did, what the boy was
facing.  Only someone who had gone through a near-death experience can
fully appreciate how difficult and painful it is to be yanked back to
life when a peaceful death is imminent.

But the dream had another meaning, too.  When I explored it with Robbie,
he helped me understand that despite my powerful drive to survive after
the transplant, some part of me had still not returned to life until
now. There is a place in our souls that can be touched only by love the
love of somebody who truly understands us.  Joseph touched that place in
me and helped me be fully alive, just as he had touched the boy's heart
in my dream and brought him back to life.

We started having similar dreams and even crossed dreams.

I used to have recurring dreams about a dog who spoke to me, and
although Joseph and I sometimes discussed our dreams, I had never
mentioned this one.  One morning Joseph told me he'd just had a dream in
which I had a dog named Freddie who suddenly began talking to him.  Wow!
Now I knew the name of the talking dog in my dreams.  This experience
marked a new level of intimacy for me, and it made me love Joseph even
more.

But things change.  I was alone in my kitchen one morning when a cool
breeze blew in through the open window, scattering napkins and papers
from the table.  When I stood up to close the window, a little crystal
heart that Joseph had given me fell to the floor and shattered.  My
heart was broken!  I tried to glue it back together, but it wouldn't
hold.  On the spot, I sat down and wrote a poem about the shattered
heart.  While it wasn't Shakespeare, it was the first time in my life I
had written a poem.

I wondered, of course, whether the breaking of this glass heart might be
a portent of what lay ahead for us.  I was afraid it was.  Our
attachment was so close and powerful that Robbie, who knew Joseph from
our research group and liked him a lot, had given me a present warning:
"I'm truly happy for both of you," he said.  "But it may be that this
relationship turns out to be so intense that one of you feels compelled
to run."

[Joseph ran.  In the summer of 1990, when I turned fifty, Amara and
Danny made a party for me.  I invited fifty-one guestsone for each year,
plus one more for good luck.  I invited Joseph, too, although he was
beginning to pull away from me.  We still lived in different towns, and
he had recently been spending time with another woman.  Joseph didn't
say so directly, but I had the feeling our relationship was ending.

After the party, Joseph and I spoke in broad, general terms about how
amazing it would be if two heart recipients ever decided to get married.
But our discussion remained theoretical.

Several weeks later, I heard from mutual friends that Joseph's new
companion had moved in with him.  I was crushed not only because it was
over between us, but also because Joseph hadn't told me himself.
Although I was enormously disappointed, I didn't dwell on it.  I
survived a transplant, I told my self.  I'll survive this, too.  My
heart can take it.

Months later, when we finally talked it over, Joseph acknowledged that
our relationship really had been too intense for him.

But although we didn't end up together, I'll always feel a special
attachment to him.  We loved each other, and had a unique bond that
neither of us is likely to experience again.  Joseph remains deep in my
heart, and I expect he always will.  From time to time I still listen to
a tape he made for me, where he sings a song he composed shortly after
his transplant.  The song is called

"Change of Heart."

Heart Throbs SOMETIMES a situation become worse before it gets better.
When I first started working with Robbie on my dreams, I was often
buffeted by strong feelings and unexpected impulses. During this period
I made a couple of decisions that were reckless and out of character,
but which seemed to fit into a larger picture of my relationship with
the elusive Tim that was slowly coming into focus.  Eventually my life
would stabilize, but the path to my new identity wasn't always smooth.

I had just begun working with Robbie when I became enchanted by a
dazzling new man.  Kirk was tall and lean with light brown hair, and
when we ran into each other in a local park, I could almost see the
sparks between us.  He looked to be at least ten years younger than I,
but if that didn't bother him, it certainly didn't bother me.  After a
long conversation that neither of us wanted to end, he asked if I would
join him for lunch.

A few days later Kirk invited me to his house.  As I came in, I noticed
a prominent display of trophies.

"What are these for?" I asked, expecting to hear about his prowess in
tennis or his passion for golf.

"I won them racing motorcycles," he said.  "That's one of my hobbies."

Okay, I thought.  Younger man, light hair, motorcycles

what exactly is going on here?

Somehow we were talking about ice skating..  I have always loved to
skate, and I mentioned to Kirk that I was looking for ward to winter so
I could get back on the ice.

"You don't have to wait," he said.  "Let me show you some thing."

He walked over to the closet and pulled out two sets of Rollerblades.
Handing me the smaller pair, he urged me to try them on.  I had never
Rollerbladed in my life, but the skates fit and Kirk's energy was
seductive.  Moments later I was sailing down the hill outside his house.
I was exhilarated, but slightly self-conscious.  Wasn't this a sport for
younger people?

Kirk didn't think so.  But in his eagerness to get me up and rolling, he
had neglected to teach me how to stop.  Moments after it began, my
maiden voyage came to an ungainly and bumpy end as I coasted right into
a parked car at the bottom of the hill.

Although I was bruised, I was having too much fun to care about the
pain.

A couple of days later I ran into one of my neighbors on the street.
"You know," she said, "I thought I saw Amara Rollerblading the other
day.  Then I wondered if it might have been you, Claire.  But that
couldn't be, not after the transplant, right?  It doesn't make sense."

No, I thought, it really doesn't.  But that was precisely what had made
the experience so enjoyable.  Kirk didn't make much sense either not for
a woman my age, with my interests.  And yet I couldn't stay away from
him.

Kirk was divorced, owned his business, and was obviously doing well.  He
was playful, glamorous, and constantly on the move.  A devout hedonist,
he had made his house into a real bachelor pad, complete with Jacuzzi,
hot tub, and even a waterbed.  This guy's idea of a casual supper
consisted of sizzling steaks and chilled martinis by the fireplace.  He
reminded me of the type of man who used to read Playboy, and who saw the
magazine as a practical guide to the good life.

He was, in short, totally unlike any man I had ever been attracted to.
And yet I was intensely attracted to him from the moment we met, before
I knew anything about him.  I felt that we shared the same energy in our
hearts.  But as much as I enjoyed being with him, I didn't feel I knew
him.  One thing I could never understand was that although Kirk had been
adopted, he had never been interested in searching for, or even learning
about, his birth parents.  Maybe I was projecting my own growing
curiosity about my donor, but I was baffled by his apparent indifference
to his origins.

Near the end of our time together, I had a bizarre and disturbing
psychic experience.  It began with a dream: the doorbell rang at Kirk's
house, and a young, attractive woman named Suzanne came in and asked for
Kirk.  He greeted her warmly and took her upstairs to show her the
bedroom.

The next morning, while I was writing down the dream, I asked Kirk if he
knew anyone named Suzanne.

"No," he replied.  "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, just a dream," I said, without revealing any further details.

Just then the doorbell rang.  Kirk went to answer it, and I heard him
say, "Hi, Suzanne." This was too weird!  Kirk introduced us, and
although he had met this woman only recently, I could feel the erotic
charge between them.  When Kirk took her upstairs to show her the rest
of the house, I started shaking.  This was so frightening I had to
leave.  Before they came back down, I put on Reboots and ran out of the
house.  I was sure that my days with Kirk were numbered, and they were.

Our liaison was electric, dramatic, and brief. Like a bright flame of
passion, the romance fizzled out soon after it began.

From the start, my attraction to Kirk seemed to emanate from some new
and unfamiliar place within me.  During our few weeks together, I was
happy to join him in his continual, almost compulsive craving for action
and excitement.  And while I had been active ever since the transplant,
with Kirk the pace of my heart seemed to be turned up a notch.  It was
now expressing a new energy all its own, with an intensity and a drive I
could barely keep up with.

Naturally, I talked with Robbie about how my attraction to Kirk seemed
to be related to the transplant.  Kirk, after all, looked a lot like the
dream image of my donor.  Robbie pointed out that when I met Kirk I had
just started working on my dreams, so it was likely that my image of Tim
had shifted to the front of my consciousness.  As soon as I found a man
who seemed to embody that image, I was hooked even before I learned
about the motorcycles.  As I suspected, my intense and inexplicable
attraction to Kirk was really a projection of my imaginings about
Timwhom I idealized.  Kirk, you might say, was my dream lover.  When he
turned out to be less than ideal, I was distraught.

But even after Kirk was gone, that youthful energy remained alive within
me, searching for another outlet.  I continued to experience an intense
craving for action and speed that seemed connected, somehow, to my new
organs.  And why not?  My lungs regulated my breathing and my heart
controlled my pace, so wasn't it possible that their presence within me
might have a profound effect on my rhythm?

A few weeks later, when I was still unable to contain my restlessness, I
impulsively flew off to France.  But instead of going to France like a
middle-class, middle-aged lady, I was more like a college kid on a
summer break.  I spent hours sitting on the floors of dusty train
stations, waiting for trains among knap sack-bearing students on their
way to youth hostels.  Clothes were strewn about sleeping bags and
backpacks were every where.  I had been to Europe before, but never like
this, not even when I was younger.  At the age of fifty I was dashing
around France at a frantic paceand for no apparent reason.

It should have been fun, but mostly I felt confused.  What are you
doing?  I kept asking myself.  Why are you traveling like this if you're
not enjoying it?

The best answer I could give was that my heart seemed to be leading me
here.  It sounds a little nutty, but that's how it felt.

My body was exhausted, but this powerful boy's heart kept pushing a
tired, middle-aged woman.  My heart seemed to be in command, while the
rest of me the older me was barely keeping pace with it.

Parts of that week were pure misery.  my lousy French, or with the heavy
bags I lugged up long flights of stairs to the train station.  When I
finally made it to the top, nobody could tell me where to buy my ticket.
There were lines everywhere, and the entire population of France seemed
to be choking on cigarettes, stinking up the air I needed to breathe.

As I breathlessly dragged my luggage from one track to the next, I was
frequently lost and continually confused.  What train am I looking for?
Where will I find it?  Am I on the right track?

Long after my body was exhausted, my heart kept pushing me on.

When I finally stumbled into the right train, I fell into an animated
conversation with my seat mate, a warm and gregarious dark-haired man in
his twenties from Brooklyn.  As we rode together through the long, dark
night, he was so attentive that I unburdened myself and babbled on about
the miserable time I was having.  Ever since landing in Paris a few days
earlier, I had felt invisible to the French, partly because I didn't
speak their language. Now, for the first time in days, I felt seen even
in this dark train.

When he saw I was crying, my companion started stroking my arm.  "Would
you like me to hold you?" he asked.  I could feel my youthful heart
leaping toward him.  Although I was old enough to be his mother, this
unexpected invitation conjured up a romantic reverie of a woman alone on
an overnight train in a foreign land, who is suddenly swept up in the
arms of a hand some young stranger.

Who's in charge here?  I wondered.  Is it me, or is it my heart?

And who am I, exactly?  Daring traveler or prudent parent?

This time my head prevailed over my heart.  While I had some tempting
fantasies of where this encounter might be headed, I didn't act on them.
This is your life, I told myself, not an Erica Jong novel.

The following night, safely ensconced in my hotel, I lay in bed and
wondered what on earth was going on with me.  What was I doing here,
thousands of miles from home, from the hospital, from Amara?  What if
something happened?  Were there any transplant doctors in France?  And
why had I come over here in the first place, to this utterly foreign
place, with foreign currency and a foreign language, where I didn't even
know how to use the telephone?  Ever since the transplant, I had been
feeling foreign even to myself.  Why did I increase the burden by adding
even more foreignness to my life, and especially by traveling alone?

The older, rational me was asking these questions, but that wasn't the
same person who had purchased the airline ticket to Paris.  It wasn't my
old self who had dragged me here, but the youthful energy of my now
twenty-year-old heart and lungs.  In France, more than ever before, I
felt as if I were two people who were sharing the same body.

I was reminded of the wonderful movie All of Me, where the soul of an
older woman (Lily fomlin) transmigrates into the body of a younger man
(Steve Martin).  But because his body now contains two different
personalities male on one side, female -on the other this poor, confused
man is forced to re learn his identity.  In one extremely clever scene,
the two sides of him try to cross the sidewalk together, each in its own
way, which leads to a preposterous tug-of-war.  Although the division
within me was not nearly so obvious, when I saw the film again after the
transplant, it really touched me especially the parts about getting used
to another presence within you.  It was just as funny the second time,
but a lot more believable.

Not surprisingly, this struggle within me was also reflected in my
dreams, which were increasingly concerned with Tim.

Among the first topics I had discussed with Robbie were the dreams about
babies, including the ones I'd had a month or so before the transplant.
Why babies?  Because after my donor died and even before, for that
matter I had symbolically brought him back to life.  As Robbie put it,
"A new self was born in your dream world."

As time passed, Tim began appearing in other guisesnot only as a baby or
a young man, but also as a boy.  In one dream, I'm on a passenger ship,
where I'm involved with a family with two young boys.  The younger boy
and I have a special rapport, and he seems to have a crush on me. He
draws a red rose and offers it to me as a gift.  Then it becomes known
on the ship that the boy has died.  Although nobody on board wants to
talk about it, I know that his death had something to do with me.

"What do you feel now?" Robbie asked as we worked on the dream.

"A lot of sadness.  I'm all choked up.  I can feel it in my stomach, my
throat.  I don't know whether it's longing, regret, or gratitude."

"And it has something to do with the little boy giving you his rose?"

"Yes, he's giving me something very precious of himself."

Then I recalled a time many years ago, when I drew a rose on a piece of
paper and gave it to my husband, together with a loving inscription.  It
was the same rose I had seen in the dream.

"What were you thinking, or writing, when you gave the picture to your
husband?" Robbie asked.

"With love from my heart, with all my heart something like that."

"So in a way the little boy is giving you his heart?"

"Yes." There was no question about it.  The boy with the rose was
another manifestation of Tim, whose death most certainly had something
to do with me.

In another image from this period, it was Tim's If ehis energy and
vigor, that was affecting me.  One spring morning, the day before I was
due at Yale for my annual stress test, I was stretched out on my long,
brown velvet couch, eyes closed, doing my daily meditation.  I had just
reached a deep state of contemplation when Tim appeared to meas if in a
dream.  He was healthy and young, and he wore jogging shorts, a
tee-shirt, and sneakers.  He was on a treadmill, running in place, just
as I would be doing tomorrow.  He was sweating profusely, as if he were
training for some kind of Olympic event.  He was on top of the world and
raring to go.  His intensity and drive were pumping through the room.

The next day, during my stress test, I could feel his boundless energy
within me.  I was walking faster and faster up a simulated hill, and the
technicians were amazed at my endurance.  So was I.  This fifty-year-old
woman was being propelled forward in this youthful dash, like the older
Margot Fonteyn dancing with the twenty-year-old Nureyev.  It was as if
this boy and I were now a single being, whose heart and lungs were so
strong we could go on indefinitely, as if I had a new, permanent, and
internal dance partner.

Eventually my legs gave out.  My muscles and my old body just couldn't
keep pace with the younger parts of me.  What was left of Tim was
valiantly pumping my blood through a body that couldn't match his vigor.
For a brief moment I felt his future that was never to be, and his
youthful spirit trapped in a body that couldn't contain it.

Although Tim could have stayed on the treadmill forever, the technicians
had to stop the test.  Exhausted, I was led into an other room to watch
the sonar video of my heart.  The dye in objected into my blood during
the stress test made my circulation visible, and I could actually see
how I was Tim and Tim was me.

Here again I was experiencing the transplant from the perspective of my
donor.  As my journey progressed, I was increasingly aware of the other
side of this equation.  How shocking it must have been for Tim's heart
and lungs and whatever parts of Tim's spirit that might have come along
with them to wake up in the body of a middle-aged woman.  Was I crazy,
or were my dreams and my changes suggesting that the human heart was
more than a mechanical pump?

Mystery Dinner IT STARTED OUT like any other weekend.  In August 1991,
on a humid Friday night, I went to a mystery theater dinner with my
friend Anne and my nephew Stuart.  At nine o'clock, as dessert was being
served, I began lining up my pills and injecting my nightly dose of
cyclosporine into a small container of orange juice.  People often turn
away when they see me taking my medicine in public, but my table mates
that night were friendly and open, and were watching me with real
interest.  Somebody asked if I had just robbed a pharmacy, and when I
explained why I was taking all these pills, I was flooded with questions
about the transplant.

Later on, one of the unattached men at our table came over to continue
the conversation.  Fred, a handsome fellow who was visiting from
Florida, introduced himself as a "rainbow maker."

As we talked, I wondered whether Fred was genuinely interested in the
transplant, or was using it as a way to flirt with me.

Or perhaps both.

"Do you know who your donor was?" he asked.

"Not really.  Just that he was an eighteen-year-old boy from Maine who
was killed in a motorcycle crash."

"Nothing else?"

I explained that the hospital officials would not release any other
information, and that strictly speaking, I already knew more than I was
supposed to.  When Fred persisted, and when he told me he was especially
interested in dreams, I took a chance and described the dream i where I
had kissed and then inhaled the young man named Tim L., whom I thought
of as my donor.  Although Gail had implied that this wasn't the right
name, the dream was so powerful that I still believed it.

Fred was fascinated by this dream, and he pressed me for additional
details.  He told me he had psychic abilities, and I nodded politely.
This was beginning to feel like a come-on.  But there was something
about this man that I liked, and when he asked for my phone number, I
gave it to him.

He called the next morning, and was eager to get together.

When I told him (truthfully) that I was busy all day, he said, "There's
something I want to tell you.  I dreamed last night that I saw your
donor's obituary in the middle of the page of a Maine newspaper."

Well, that got my attention.  Although I still wasn't sure about Fred,
who was I, of all people, to be dismissing other people's dreams?  It
sounded like a long shot, but why not check it out?

"Here's what we could do," I suggested.  "I'll call the Boston Public
Library to see if they have any newspapers from Maine.

If I don't call you back, let's meet there at two o'clock."

As I was looking up the number of the library, I wondered why it had
never even occurred to me to search for my donor's obituary on my own.
After all, I knew the date of death, I knew the young man's age, and I
thought I knew his name.  And yet the idea hadn't entered my mind.

"Maine is a big place," the librarian told me, "and we carry only one
newspaper from the entire state.  Frankly, it sounds like a wild goose
chase.  But if you'd like to come in and have a look, just ask for the
Microtext Department."

I arrived a little early.  Fred was already there, scrolling through the
newspaper for the week of my transplant.  I stood behind him and peered
over his shoulder as the pages slid by.

Oh my God!  There, in the middle of the page, was the item we were
searching for!

I felt a sudden weakness in my knees.

"That's it," I said, collapsing into a chair.  "It's him."

I was sure of it.  The date corresponded with my transplant, and the
details matched what little I already knew.

He was eighteen.  The cause of death was a motorcycle accident.  And his
name was Timothy Lasalle.*

I felt weak all over.  So the first Tim dream was true after all!

But now what?  The obituary, which I photocopied, mentioned five sisters
and two brothers.  Here was the family of my heart on a piece of paper.
What do I do now?

Until this moment I hadn't been 100 percent certain that the transplant
had even happened.  The whole process had been so otherworldly that it
was almost easier to view it as a miracle.

The fact that I wasn't allowed to know my donor's name and ad dress only
added to the feeling that this had been a mythical event.  Until now,
most of my information about the donor had come from images and dreams
that were difficult to decipher and impossible to confirm.

* At the family's request, I have changed their names and the name of
their town to protect their privacy.  Tim's last name, however, did
start with an "L." The first sentence of the obituary read as follows:
MILFORDTimothy Lasalle, 18, of 29 Chestnut Street, died Friday at a
Bangor hospital from injuries received in a motorcycle accident in
Milford."

Suddenly I knew that the donor was real, and that he had a family.  Now
there was proof: a name, an address, a town.

Fred and I went to a nearby coffee shop, where Fred was full of
questions.  What was I going to do now?  Was I going to contact the
family?

I told him that I didn't know, but that this was something I definitely
wanted to think about.  I thought I would write them a letter, but I
didn't want to act hastily.  As we left the coffee shop and went our
separate ways, I said goodbye to Fred and thanked him warmly for helping
me.  I had met nus man only yesterday and would probably never see him
again, but today he had potentially changed my life.  What mysterious
force had brought this "rainbow maker" into my life?  How had he come to
have that dream?  Was it just a coincidence that the library carried
this one Maine newspaper, or had Fred been dropped on my path in order
to connect me to Tim's family?

I was tempted to call Gail immediately, but I decided to wait a few
days.  I was going to New Haven anyway, and I wanted to tell her in
person.  Besides, I wasn't sure that Gail could add much to what I had
just learned.

But I did tell Robbie, who was very excited about the obituary.  In a
way, he was even more affected than I was by this tangible evidence that
Tim had really existed.  Although Robbie was empathetic and open-minded,
until he actually saw the obituary he had insisted on seeing Tim only as
"Tim"that is, as a dream presence, designated by quotation marks, who
might or might not have had a connection with my donor.  To Robbie,
"Tim" was a psychological event, and what mattered was my experience of
him.

But now Robbie was forced to consider what had long seemed clear to
menot only that there was a "real" Tim, but that some aspects of him
might exist within me.  As Robbie wrote: I feel a change of viewpoint
taking place.  My vehement attachment to the psychological point of view
about "Tim" is loosening up as Claire comes closer to her desire to meet
with Tim's family.  I am beginning to believe that some of Tim's essence
has transmigrated to Claire.  As a professional therapist, I know that
vigor and resilience are part of character, temperament, and identity.
If the transplant has some how passed on elements of his temperament,
personality, and identity, then psychological residues of the actual Tim
L.  (not just the image of "Tim") may now inhabit Claire.

I can feel the quotation marks dropping away as I leave the safe
confines of psychoanalysis and move into the tricky realm of belief.

In New Haven, I had dinner with Gail.

"Remember when I called and described the dream where my donor
appeared?"

"Of course I remember."

"Well, I know now that I had the right name."

She looked at me.  "What makes you so sure?"

 "I found his obituary in a newspaper, and it was the name I gave you
from the dream."

She sighed.  "Claire, when you called that day I wasn't sure what to
tell you.  Your call really spooked me.  But I couldn't confirm the
donor's name because it was just a dream."

I told her about Fred's dream, and how he had led me to Tim's obituary.
As I described it, I wondered if she believed me.

At this point I wasn't altogether certain that I believed me.

"Let me ask you something that might explain some of this," I said.  "Do
you think it's possible that Tim's name was spoken by one of the doctors
during the surgery, and that it somehow reached me in my unconscious
state?"

"I was wondering the same thing," said Gail.  "It's the only way I could
explain it.  But the doctors never mention the donor's name; they're not
even aware of it.  Besides, your transplant was my first time in surgery
with Dr.  Baldwin, and I remember it clearly.  It was so quiet in there
you could hear a pin drop.  That's how Dr.  Baldwin works: not a word is
spoken."*

We moved on to other topics, but as our dinner ended, Gail repeated her
earlier warning that it might not be a good idea for me to contact the
family.

"I don't know what I'll do," I told her.  "Right now I'm just sitting
with this information.  I haven't contacted them yet, but it's something
I definitely want to think about."

One of the few people I told about the obituary was John, a hospital
chaplain in Boston who counseled families of accident victims and was
often asked to provide information and advice about organ donation. John
and I were friendly, and from time to time we would lecture together. He
would explain the process from the perspective of the donor's family,
while I would describe what it was like to be on the receiving end of an
organ transplant.

If and when I contacted Tim's family, I thought of John as a potential
intermediary.  If the family was willing to meet me, I wanted to drive
to Maine with Robbie and Johnor at least one of them.  Despite the pull
I was feeling to go there, I didn't want to make the trip alone.  I was
too frightened of the unknown, of how I would be received, and of my
emotional reaction.  And theirs.

John was eager to be involved.  "I could contact a friend from that
area," he said.  "He'll find out what he can, and perhaps he can even be
in touch with the family on your behalf."

When a week passed with no word, I called John again.

"Were you able to talk to your friend?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.  "He wasn't able to contact the family directly, but
from what he picked up, I think we should abort the trip."

Abort?  A strange choice of language for a minister, I thought.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"This is hard for me to tell you, but apparently nobody was surprised
when Timothy died.  He was known for driving fast.

I'm not sure about this, but I get the impression there were other
problems, too.  Maybe drugs or alcohol.  This kid lived on the edge, and
my guess is that he had a lot of problems."

"Oh my God." It was terribly hard for me to hear that the young man I
had been imagining and seeing in my dreams might have been very
different from the person whose heart and lungs had become part of me.

"I'm sorry to be telling you this, Claire, but that's what I was able to
come up with."

I was devastated.  Numb.  My hero had just been torn down.

Alcohol and drugs?  Wait a minute didn't they screen organ donors for
those problems?

Gail's earlier warning was ringing in my ears: Don't open this can of
worms.  Why hadn't I listened to her?  One thought led to another, and
soon I was wondering whether Gail knew more about this family than she
was letting on. - I called Robbie to tell him the latest.  "I don't
think we should proceed any further," I said.  "This is too painful for
me."

"Why?  Because the real Tim may not have been wonderful?

Maybe he drank.  Maybe he had other problems.  Everybody has a dark
side."

But I wasn't ready to hear this.  "I think we should abandon our
search," I said.

"It's up to you," he said.

During our next session, Robbie and I talked again about how I had been
carrying around an idealized image of Tim.  Although he respected my
decision to pull back, Robbie urged me to keep an open mind.  "People
are complicated," he reminded me.  "The real Tim was probably a complex
person with a mix of good and bad qualities.  Do you really want to
abandon your search because he might have been different from the
fantasy figure in your dreams?"

Robbie was in a delicate position.  Ever since I had found the obituary,
he was excited about visiting the family.  Assuming they agreed to see
us, this would be a marvelous opportunity to learn who Tim L.  really
was, and whether he corresponded at all to the "Tim" of my imagination.
But while Robbie didn't want me to give up too hastily, he also made no
attempt to pressure me.

For a week or two after my conversation with the chaplain, I was
terribly sad.  I immersed myself in this new information and allowed it
to wash over me.

And of course I had a dream: I am in an elevator with other people,
facing a dark man whose back is against the wall.  He is wearing a dark
blue sweater.  I place both my hands on his chest and say, "Timmy, you
are my brother."

I couldn't have scripted it better.  After my initial fear about the
real Tim's possibly sinister side, the dream Tim had darkened and turned
blue.  The tall, golden-haired figure I had dreamed about earlier was
transformed into a solid, less idealized, and more substantial
character.  The image was less romantic now, and more realistic.  I had
accepted this man as my brother.  And if that were true, then Tim's
family was also my family.  Despite my fears, I seemed to be taking
another big step in their direction.

The blue sweater in the dream had an additional significance:

during the winter months, Robbie invariably wore a blue sweater.  This
merging of Robbie and Tim wasn't surprising:

during my analytic work with Robbie, I often projected aspects of Tim's
invisible presence onto him.  The transference that I experienced and
examined with Robbie made it easier to explore my feelings toward Tim,
and even to form a relationship with him.  In a sense, Robbie, too, was
my brother, who was joining me in my search for Tim.  Ever since the
obituary, my bond with Robbie had grown stronger as we circled around
Tim in ever smaller loops.

The blue sweater dream carried a strong message of acceptance, and a
couple of days later I overcame my earlier reservations.  Robbie was
right.  Even if the chaplain's information about Tim was true, did that
mean I shouldn't contact the family? Perhaps what stiI1 existed of Tim
was his purer essence.  If he had been tormented in life, he was free
now to fly and he seemed to be doing that through me.  As I turned these
thoughts over in my mind, I was gradually coming to terms with Tim
whoever he turned out to be.

I called Gail with a question: "If a donor were addicted to drugs," I
asked, "or had been drinking a lot, how would that affect his heart?"

"I'm not qualified to give you a medical answer," she said, "but I can
assure you that before a donor is accepted, the medical team runs a lot
of tests.  Nobody wants to go to the enormous trouble and expense of
transplanting an organ that may not be healthy.  I'm not exactly sure
what you're getting at here, but your donor's liver was also donated, so
it must have been healthy.  As far as I know, there was no hint of any
problems."

Gail's answer helped, and so did Robbie's comments.  But what really
made the difference was my allowing the issue to percolate for a couple
of weeks.  When I emerged from this process, Tim was more my hero than
ever.  I was convinced that some part of him was living within me, and
was somehow leading me to his family.  Sooner or later I expected to
contact them, and when the time was right I would know it.

Life goes on.  When Amara finished high school and my child support
ended, I gave up my Brookline apartment and moved back to Hull, a few
miles south of Boston.  The house sits on a cliff overlooking the ocean;
when I'm there, it feels like I'm literally living on the edge.  Before
I was sick, Amara and I used to spend weekends and summers here.  During
my illness I had stayed in Brookline, but I never stopped thinking about
that peaceful and calming place on the ocean, with its magnificent views
of the water.

I moved back to Hull on May 1, 1991.  That very night, I dreamed about
Tim.  He was wearing a black cape, and was about to ascend to a high
place that looked like the horizon.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"To die," he replied.  "I'm going to the other side."

"What's it like over there?"

"Oh, I come right back."

He was pretty sure of himself, and had apparently done this before.
Going back and forth seemed to be a routine adventure for him.  As in
the ghost dream, walls and boundaries that were normally solid had
become permeable.

So Tim was following me following me to Hull, and also leading me to his
family.  The very day I moved here, to a house with a sweeping view of
the horizon, Tim had appeared in a dream about the horizon.  As soon as
I awoke from this dream, I knew it was time to contact the family.
Almost nine months had passed since I had found the obituary, but I had
yet to act on it.

But now the barriers were down.  If Tim could move back and forth
between worlds, so could I.

On my second night in Hull, I dreamed about a young man who has been
seriously impaired since birth.  He wants to be with me forever.  We go
to his home, where his family is, and we tell them we'll always be
together.

This dream, right on the heels of the other one, reinforced my decision
to contact the family.  An impaired young man who, in another realm,
might be reduced to his heart and lungs, wanted to be with me forever.
This was reminiscent of my very first dream about Tim, where I inhaled
him into me, knowing that we would be together forever.  In this latest
dream, we had gone home together to visit his family.  If that wasn't a
signal, nothing was.

As I saw it, Tim had done everything but send me directions to his
parents' house.

So I wrote them a letter:

Dear Mrs.  and Mrs.  Lasalle:

With the passing of another year, I write once again to thank you for
the life you have given me.  No words can properly express my gratitude.
This has been a productive year for me: working on a book about heart
transplants, the performance of a new work I have choreographed,
watching my daughter enjoy her first year in college, and just
thoroughly enjoying the simple, ordinary things of every day, something
I no longer take for granted.  I have also begun a support group for
people who are recipients or candidates for transplants.

The authorities did not give meyour name or address.  That knowledge
came to me in another way, and I have taken the liberty of writing to
you personally.

If you do not wish to respond, I understand.  If however,you, as I,
would like to communicate,you can reach me at , or by phone at
Gratefully yours, Claire Sylvia A few days later I drove to New Haven
for the monthly meeting of our research group.  Because our sessions
began in the morning and generally lasted most of the day, I used to
drive down the previous afternoon and stay over in a hotel.  On the
morning of our meeting, I was awakened by a phone call from Amara, who
was staying-with a friend.

"Hi Mom, you had a few calls on the machine yesterday."

"Anything important?" I asked.

"Well, I thought you might want to know that Mr.  Lasalle called."

Really?  While I had hoped and even expected that Tim's family would
respond to my letter, I was so excited by this news that I momentarily
forgot where I was, or what I was doing in this hotel room.  Then I
glanced at the clock and saw that our meeting would soon be starting.  I
ran to take a shower.

As I was.drying my hair, Robbie knocked on the door.  He had just driven
down from Boston, and he looked exhausted.

"Wonderful news," I told him.  "Mr.  Lasalle called."

"Really?  What did he say?"

"I didn't speak to him.  Amara gave me the message."

"Any indication that they want to see you?"

"He didn't say.  Amara was at a friend's house, so the number's at home.
I'll call tonight when I get back."

Back in Boston, my friend Pam suggested that I return Mr.  Lasalle's
call from her house so I wouldn't be alone.  She settled me on the couch
with a glass of wine.

"I'm incredibly nervous," I told her.

"Tell me about it," she said.  "Why did you write to the family?

What makes you want to visit them?"

It was odd to hear the question put so rationally.  Until now I had been
operating mostly on instinct and intuition.

"I feel as if somebody else is inside me, and I want to know who it is.
I also want to make a connection with Tim's family."

"Why?"

Why indeed?  I hadn't really put this into words before, but I found
myself telling Pamand also acknowledging to my self that ever since we
had moved out of my grandparents' apartment when I was young, I had
always wanted to be part of a big, warm, loving family.  Maybe Tim's
family was like that.

"And one member of that family is gone," Pam said.

"Yes, he's gone, and I'm here instead.  Or maybe he's here, too, in some
way.  I have this feeling that Tim has been leading me home, and that my
going to see his family might be his way of coming back to them."

Pam smiled.  She was asking big questions, but my concerns at that
moment were small and practical.

"When they answer the phone," I asked her, "what should I say?"

.  "'Hello' would be nice."

"No really, what am I supposed to say to them?  Hello Mom and Dad?  I'm
partly your son?" Soon we were giggling like nervous teenagers.

Finally I picked up the phone.  As I punched in the numbers, I could
hear my heart pounding.

Ring.

How long should I wait?  Maybe they won't answer.  Or maybe I hope they
won't.

Ring.

Maybe I shouldn't be doing this.  Maybe Gail was right.

Every moment was adding new anxieties.  What if the chaplain was right?
What if Tim was a drug dealer?  What if I hung up now?

Final.

Relief.  It seems they're not home.

Ring.

No, wait, be home, please.  Don't make me go through this again!

Ring.

No answer, no machine.  Well good night, Tim's family, wherever you are.
I hung up feeling let down, my body sagging.

"Go home and get a good night's sleep," Pam said.  "Try again tomorrow,
and make sure there's someone with you."

With another friend, I tried again on Sunday morning.  Again, no answer.
Maybe they were in church.

That afternoon, with the call weighing heavily on my mind, I decided to
try again.  I was alone, but so what?  Enough stalling, I told myself.
They've got to be home now.  Call them and get it over with.

"Hello?" A soft female voice.

"Hello, this is Claire Sylvia."

"How are you?" Very matter-of-fact, as if I called them all the time.

"Very well, thank you.  Thank you so much for calling the other day.  It
means a lot.  I understand that your family not only saved my life, but
several others, too."

"We got together and decided that's what he would have wanted." No
mention of Tim by name.  Was that significant?

"How did you find us?" she asked.

I was hoping she wouldn't ask not yet, anyway.  Acutely conscious of her
feelings, I began to tell her about the dream where Tim first appeared
to me.  I spoke slowly, weighing each word.  My heart felt jittery, and
I couldn't sit still.  As I finished, I realized she had been carrying
on another conversation that was unrelated to ours.  I ended by telling
her how I had found Tim's obituary in the library.

"That's a nice story, dear," she said.  Although it was clearly said
without malice, I winced when she used the word "story."

"And how are you?" she asked again.

Her absentminded response dropped on me like a heavy stone.  I don't
know what I expected, but it wasn't this.  I pushed ahead anyway.

"Would it be all right if I came to visit?"

"Yes." A woman of few words.

Knowing that Robbie was free on Mondays, I asked, "Would a week from
tomorrow be all right?  I'd like to come with a friend, since it's a
long drive."

"Well, I work that day, but you could come anyway and visit my husband."
That was odd.  Didn't she want to see me?

"Would a Sunday be better for you?"

"Yes, we could do it on a Sunday, if it's later on in the after noon."

What's going on here?  Why hasn't she shown any emotion?

We agreed I would come on the first Sunday in June.

I was laughing as I hung up the phone not because the conversation was
funny, but because I was anxious, and this conversation was so oddly
understated and unemotional.  I saw myself as offering to bring this
woman news of what had happened to her son, but she showed no affect, no
enthusiasm, no excitement.  Did she think I was loony?  Or was she
possibly feeling deep emotions and holding them in check while talking
to a total stranger on the telephone?

I called Robbie, who said the date was fine with him.  Then I called
Mrs.  Lasalle again to arrange the time and to get directions.

Something had changed: "I thought, after we talked, that I could switch
with someone at my job, so you could come earlier." This was a relief,
the first indication that our meeting might be important to her.  But
when she put her husband on the line to give me directions, we were back
to the land without feelings.  He directed me to a parking lot near
their house, and said he'd meet us in a brown car.  For all he seemed to
care, I might have been delivering a truckload of firewood.

Don't make assumptions, I told myself.  A lot of people are wary on the
phone.  They're probably different in person.

June 2 was a very hot day.  Robbie and I didn't talk much during the
drive, although Robbie did mention that his daughter, a year younger
than Amara, thought our trip was "weird." Perhaps Amara did too,
although she hadn't said much about it.

"How do you imagine the parents?" Robbie asked me.  I had no answer.  My
mind was blank, and all my previous images of Tim had disappeared.  No
more troubled teenager, and no more warm family that would sweep me into
its bosom.  No more prodigal daughter returning home.  No
preconceptions, although I was glad I was bringing flowers.

I hoped they were eager to see me.  While I wanted to thank Tim's family
for giving me life, I had heard that the act of donating organs often
helps the mourners in their own healing.  I wanted to believe that in my
small way, I had provided an opportunity for them as well.  Although I
couldn't imagine how they felt, I believed I was bringing a part of Tim
back to them.

"Will the rest of the family be there?" Robbie asked.

"I have no idea."

Eventually we found our way to the parking lot, which was deserted on a
Sunday.

"What do you suppose this place is used for?" I asked Robbie.

"This must be the place where transplant recipients meet with their
donor families," he replied.  We both laughed, breaking the tension.

As we got out of the car to stretch, a brown Toyota pulled into the lot.
My heart jumped.

A woman drove up and looked right past us.  Her car had Ver mont plates.

Then Robbie spotted him.  A large brown station wagon drove slowly into
view.  Robbie waved, and the driver, a man, waved back.  My stomach
tightened.  It seemed to take him for ever to park.  Finally he came to
a stop beside us.

As we got out of the car to meet him, everything seemed silent and
dreamlike.  Only the squeak of the car door broke the mood.

He was alone.  I thought they were both coming, but maybe she wasn't
interested.  Or maybe she had to work after all.

Mr.  Lasalle was smaller than I expected, and he greeted us
perfunctorily.  I was bringing him the heart of his son, and he said
"hello." I was expecting a profound moment, and he said, "Follow me to
the house."

"That was awfully casual," I said to Robbie when we were back in the
car.  "But at least he seemed friendly."

"He's probably nervous, too." Robbie said.  Good point.  I was so
wrapped up in this moment that I hadn't stopped to see it from the
family's point of view.

The world of Tim's parents consisted of freshly mowed lawns and large
clapboard houses.  Mr.  Lasalle pulled into a driveway.

To our left, on the lawn, was a stone statue of the Holy Mother of the
Sacred Heart.

My stomach was churning.  I needed a bathroom.  I was breathing quickly
and holding on tightly to the flowers.

As we followed Mr.  Lasalle to the screen door, his wife came out with a
smile.  I liked her instantly.  Fragile and solid at once, she looked
like an accepting presence.  My stomach relaxed a little, but my steps
were tentative and ambivalent.  She looked like the handshaking type, so
I reached out to shake her hand.  I was surprised and immensely pleased
when she hugged me instead.

I turned around to introduce her to Robbie.  Their greeting was a little
more formal, but I could see in Robbie's eyes that he was taken with
her.

As we stepped into the house, I felt myself falling over a cliff.

And into a whole new world.

Family of My Heart. I followed Mrs.  Lasalle into a large, bright living
room, where three young women Tim's sisters stood up to greet us.  When
we all sat down, I found Robbie's eyes just to make sure he was there. I
was incredibly nervous.

We discussed the heat and the humidity, and the small talk dragged on.
And on.  And on.  Was there any way to stop it?

Tim's heart was sitting on Tim's couch next to Tim's mother, and what
were we talking about?  The weather!  And the high ways between Boston
and here, and whether it was better to take the toll roads.

Meanwhile, of course, we were all sizing each other up.

While I was chatting with his wife, Mr.  Lasalle was scrutinizing me.
Robbie told me later that the sisters were watching me like hawks.

The absence of real communication became excruciating, and I finally
excused myself to use the bathroom.  When I returned, iced tea was
served, and we settled back into our awkwardness.

There was an elephant in the room and nobody wanted to acknowledge it.
Would the whole afternoon be like this?

.We were joined by a young blond woman with ruddy cheeks and blue eyes.
This was Annie, a fourth sister, who was closest ect.  "How do you know
about the book?" I asked.

"You mentioned it in your letter to my parents." ; That's right, I had.
I knew Robbie so well that I could almost see his analytical suspicions
beginning to rise.  If they know  i we're writing a book, he was
thinking, was all this going to be theater?  Would they now portray Tim
as totally sunny and flawless?  A shirtless man entered from the back of
the house.  John was one of Tim's older brothers.  Tim's five sisters
and two brothers grew up in this house, just as, a generation earlier,
Tim's father grew up here with his eight siblings.

Carla turned to her brother and said, "Claire was just about to ' tell
how she found us."

As I began my story, everyone leaned forward in anticipation.

My narrative was interrupted at times by soft exclamations of amazement:
"Unbelievable," somebody said when I described the inhaling dream.  When
I finished, eyes were misted over ; in age to Tim.  Leaning against the
mantel, she looked me in the eye and said, "So tell us what you know.
What about the dream you told my mother on the phone?  And you're
writing a book?"

I wanted to jump up and hug her for being so real.  But at first we were
all taken aback by her directness.  She had sliced right through our
small talk.  Robbie and I looked at each other and laughed.

Annie blushed and said, "Well, I thought I'd better ask." ]

I assured Annie that her questions were important to me, and that I
loved her for asking them.  She blushed even more and gave me a
beautiful smile.

I sensed that Robbie was startled by her mention of our project with
silent tears.

"None of the other people who received his organs have been in touch
with us," Carla said.

"No," said another voice, "the man with the eyes sent us an Easter
card." In addition to his heart and lungs, the family had donated Tim's
corneas, kidneys, and liver.

"At first," said Mrs.  Lasalle, "I didn't want to do this.  I didn't
want him all cut up." There was pain in her voice.

"It's a good thing we had two days to decide," added one of the sisters,
"or we wouldn't have done it.  We needed some time to get used to the
idea.  In the end, we all decided that my brother would have wanted it
this way."

"Would you like to see a picture of Tim?" Mrs.  Lasalle asked.

It was moving to hear her speak his name in my presence.

"Oh yes," I responded.  I was dying to.

She went to another room and returned with a framed photograph. Sitting
back on the couch, she turned the picture so I could see it.  I moved
closer.

He wore glasses, although I didn't see him that way in my dream.  In
this photo he looked about fourteen.  He was dressed in formal clothes
and was standing beside a priest.  But even with the glasses, I could
see the sparkle in his eyes.

Mrs.  Lasalle started to say something about Tim when she suddenly
choked up.  Now the tears flowed.  When I moved to embrace her, I could
feel her thin and solid body grieving in my arms as we cried together. I
felt a bond between us, a bond like nothing I had ever known.

"Mrs.  Lasalle," I began, but she stopped me and said, "Call me June,
dear."

"And your husband-is Carl?" I asked, turning to him.  Some how, he
seemed less solid than his frail-looking wife.  He appeared to be on the
verge of saying something, but he couldn't allow himself to do it. There
seemed to be something unspoken and unfinished between Carl and Tim.  It
wasn't expressed, but I felt it in my heart.

"Would you like to see Tim's room?" June asked.  This was more than I
had hoped for.  I got up from the couch, my body moving with a will of
its own.  I turned to Robbie, who smiled and followed us upstairs.

Tim's room looked like the room of any boy.  It was in no way unusual,
except that it was Tim's room.

June led us across the stairwell to a guest room.  On the shelves of a
low, open bookcase were photographs of the children, together with their
bronzed baby shoes.  She reached down for Tim's picture and handed it to
me.

I was looking at a five-year-old, whose darling face smiled up at me.  I
recognized the spirit in those bright eyes; it had been with me since
the transplant.  He was such a little boy in my hands, so full of life
and of mischief.

But I couldn't quite comprehend this, my holding Tim's picture in my
hands and his heart in my chest.  I paused to take a breath and Tim's
lungs filled with air.  Except that they were my lungs now.  Mine to
breathe with, as I grieved with his mother next to me.  Time had stopped
for a moment as I stood here with Tim's picture and Tim's mother.

June reached for the photograph, but my hands didn't want to let it go.
I clutched the picture to my heart before returning it.  Time had
started up again.

Back downstairs.  In the den off the living room, a framed poem hung on
the wall.  Tim's older sister wrote it a few days ago, for his
three-year memorial service.  I realized that while I was rejoicing in
the third anniversary of my new life, they were grieving all over again.

As I tried to read the poem, the words floated in front of me through a
blur of tears.  I was exhausted from all this emotion, and I wondered if
my heart could stand it.  What if my heart couldn't take it anymore, and
I died right now, right here?

No, they can't go through that again.  I'd better die some where else.

By now the living room was teeming with relatives.  Everyone wanted to
meet me and hear my story.  Tim's cousin sat next to me on the couch and
asked if she could touch me.  I felt little touches on my hands and arms
as if she were making sure I really existed.

"I was very close to Tim, and I didn't have a chance to say goodbye,"
she told me, and we embraced.

Her husband had brought a videotape with some shots of Tim.  They said
he was shy in front of a camera, and sure enough we saw him from the
back, repairing a vacuum cleaner but re fusing to turn around.  His body
was thin and wiry, like in my dream.  Then he said, "I fixed it
already."

Somebody mentioned that shortly before Tim died, he went around asking
family members if there was anything they needed done before he left.
When I heard the phrase "before he left," a shiver rippled through my
body.  Was it possible Tim knew he was going to die?  I thought back to
last month's dream, the one that compelled me to contact the family,
where Tim told me he was going to the other side.  "It's easy," he said
in the dream.  "I come right back."

Back in the video, Tim was goofing around with his sisters and making
silly faces for the camera.  His playfulness reminded me of the Tim of
my dreams.

"He seems very active," Robbie observed.  A comment, but really a
question.

June said that Tim had a tremendous amount of energy.  The sisters
described how difficult it was to baby-sit him, and how he tried to run
away from them until they tied him to a rope.

"He was restless," somebody added, "holding down three jobs and all."

I nodded vigorously.  This made sense to me.  June said that Tim had
more energy than any of her other kids.

"That's why he loved motorcycles," one of the sisters said.

I was reminded of my whirlwind trip through France, and how often Tim's
heart had worn me down with its constant craving for activity.

"Was he a beer drinker?" I asked.

His sisters nodded.  Then his brother said, "He didn't drink that much."
End of discussion.  I had the feeling that Tim liked beer, but that his
brother didn't want us to think so.

When I told them how I wanted a beer soon after the operation, there
were smiles all around.

"Did you ever have the urge to drive a sixteen-wheeler?"Josie asked with
a grin.  "Tim always wanted to drive those big trucks."

"No," I replied.  "Well, at least not yet." We all laughed.

"He always wanted to be a truck driver," Carl said.

It was so amazing just to be there that I had to remind myself that I
had come with some specific questions.  I asked if Tim ever had colds,
and whether he recovered quickly.

"He hardly ever got sick," somebody said.  "And when he did, he got over
it fast."

Not much doubt in that answer.  Maybe I really did inherit his
resilience.

I asked if he liked green peppers.

"Are you kidding?  He loved them," a sister told me.  "He used to fry
them up with a whole kielbasa sausage."

I explained that I never liked peppers before the transplant.

"But what he really loved was chicken nuggets," said Annie.

"Oh, my God!"

"What is it, Claire?"

"I just remembered something I've never told anyone.  After the
transplant, when I was finally allowed to drive again, the first place I
went to was Kentucky Fried Chicken.  I had this craving for chicken
nuggets, which I'd never had before."

Everybody laughed.  John said that after Tim's accident, they had to
remove a container of chicken nuggets from under his jacket.  He was
carrying them when he died.

The front door opened and Tim's aunt came in.  Greeting me, she was
close to tears.  During the final months of Tim's life, he had spent
time at her house after a fight with his father over buying the
motorcycle.  Tim's aunt didn't stay long.  Maybe she couldn't bear the
conflicted feelings that my visit had stirred up.

As she was leaving, June's mother arrived a beautiful woman in her
eighties, elegant and tastefully dressed.  Everyone mentioned her quick
recovery from her recent surgery, and it occurred to me that perhaps
Tim's grandmother was one source of his remarkable resilience.  And
mine, too.

She came right over and hugged me with tears in her eyes.

"It's wonderful that you came," she said.  "You're part of the family"
These were the words I'd been longing to hear, and now I, too, had tears
in my eyes.  I felt embraced and accepted by this big, warm, loving
family, the family I had been longing for, the family Tim had left me.

June handed me a newspaper clipping from 1988.  It was an article about
my transplant, which included my name and the fact that I lived in
Brookline.  I was stunned.

"So you knew all along," I blurted out.

"We wanted to be in touch with you, but the hospital people strongly
discouraged it." I glanced over at Robbie.  He was shaking his head in
anger, just as he did when Lorna from our re search group described how
she had desperately wanted to get in touch with her donor family, and
that the hospital had refused to help her.

"We were so happy when you wrote to us,"June said.

From here the conversation meandered along various lines.

Suddenly a question hung in the room:

"What is your religion, Claire?"

I hesitated.  What if my being Jewish was a problem for them?

How would they react when they learned that Tim's Catholic heart now
resided in a Jewish body?

"I'm Jewish."

Silence.  Maybe they didn't know any Jews.  But when the conversation
resumed without a break in the mood, I was relieved.

"Do you want to see Tim's grave?" Josie asked.  The idea spooked me; I
couldn't imagine what I'd feel like when I got there.  But I couldn't
turn back now.  I had come this far, and now I had to go all the way.

"Yes, I'd like that."

The meeting soon drew to a close.  I was hugged and kissed profusely,
with standing invitations from all over the state.

We set off for the cemetery.  Josie drove, with Carla next to her.
Robbie and I were-in the back.  Along the way, we were shown the
neighboring houses of two aunts.

Josie turned around to ask, "Do you want to see where he had his
accident?"

Oh God, I thought, do we have to?  But I said, "Oh, yes." A subtle
switch had occurred: until now I had been sharing my experience of Tim,
which the family was hungry to hear.  Back in the house, an added
element of performance came into my story, like the feeling I get when I
take the stage and begin dancing. But now the momentum had shifted, and
they were sharing their Tim with me.  I had become their audience, and I
no longer knew what to expect.  I wasn't sure I wanted to learn these
new steps, or where they might lead.

The sisters pointed out a brown house on the left.  "Tim painted it just
before the accident," said Carla.  "He was proud of his work, and we
think he probably turned to admire it just before the other driver
pulled into the driveway." Josie stopped the car next to a huge tree.

"This is where it happened," she said.  "The woman who was driving the
other car had to leave it there.  She couldn't get back into it.  It
stayed there for weeks until they finally towed it away.

Just before Tim drove here, he passed our house and Dad yelled out to
him to slow down.  Dad always wanted him to slow down."

"He flew into that tree headfirst, without a helmet," said Josie.  "His
brains were all exposed by the time the ambulance came."

I was shocked to hear her describing Tim's death in such graphic detail.
I didn't really want to hear it.  But Robbie was studying the tree as if
he intended to engrave each detail in his memory.  I was so glad he had
come with me.

As we got back into the car, the air was heavy with emotion.

Nobody said a word.

The cemetery was filled with statues mostly welcoming Christs and
consoling Madonnas.  I stood in front of Tim's stone, a light-colored
polished granite.  On the side of the grave, fresh flowers rested in a
vase.  "Dad brought those," Carla said.

Tim's sisters were down on their knees in prayer.  I wanted to put a
stone on the marker, the way it's done in Jewish cemeteries, and I asked
the sisters if this would be all right.

"Sure," they said.  Robbie handed me a pebble, and I performed the
little ritual that has been done for centuries.  But in stead of being
overwhelmed with feelings, I was numb.

As I placed the pebble on the headstone, I read the inscription over Tim
s name and dates: FOREVER TOGETHER.  A chill ran down my spine.  I
didn't know how that phrase was intended, but for me it had a very
special meaning: at the end of the dream where I first met Tim and
inhaled him into me, I knew we would be together forever.

I hugged the girls.  Now we were all crying.

When we returned to the house, June and Carl invited us for dinner at a
nearby restaurant with Josie and Carla.  I ordered chicken nuggets in
honor of Tim, and the gesture seemed to be appreciated.  Now the
conversation was light and pleasant, far removed from the purpose of our
visit.

"I'm not much of a correspondent,"June told me, "so I won't be writing
very much.  But we want you to know that you're welcome here any time
you like."

"We'll write to you, if it's all right," said Carla.

"I'd love that.  And you're welcome to visit me any time."

Carl sat back, smiled, and paid the bill.

As Robbie and I walked June and Carla back to their house, June asked if
we'd like to come in for a little dessert.

I looked at Robbie.  "We'd love to," he said.  "But we really should be
heading back.  It's getting late, and we have a long drive ahead of us."
I felt the same way.  I didn't want to leave, but I was exhausted.

"Well, okay," she said.  "I just made a little cake to go with some
coffee."

Robbie and I looked at each other again.  "Of course we'll come in," we
both told her.

Inside, June disappeared and returned with a huge sheet cake, decorated
with a single word in large print: WELCOME.

As the mother of my heart presented the cake to me, her face was
beaming.

"Chocolate," she said.  "Tim's favorite."

More About Tim

AS ROBBIE AND I began driving back to Boston, I was exhausted, almost
too tired to speak.  But I was also elated in the afterglow of a truly
unforgettable day.  I had just learned that many of the dreams, images,
and hunches I'd had about my donor matched up closely with what his
loved ones knew about him.  And in addition to telling me about Tim,
they had welcomed me into their family.  It was amazing: just this
morning, these people had existed for me as one-dimensional strangers, a
flat list of names in a newspaper obituary. Now, during the course of a
single afternoon, they had sprung to life as spirited, breathing souls.
And I was one of them!

As we drove along dark country roads, Robbie and I tried to reconstruct
every detail, word, and gesture from our long, emotional, and very
satisfying meeting.  We had both been taken with Tim's beautiful and
stately grandmother, and one of the many highlights of my visit was the
way this noble woman had wholeheartedly and tearfully enfolded me into
her family.  But we had also noticed a certain ambivalence about my
arrival, which seemed to break down along gender lines.  Tim's mother,
his grandmother, his sisters, and his cousin were all happy and excited
to meet me, and were clearly open to the possibility that some kind of
metaphysical or spiritual connection existed between Tim and me.  Tim's
father, however, and especially his brother, were more cautious and
distant, while two other siblings hadn't shown up at all. And when I
said goodbye to Carl, I had the strong sense of unfinished business
between father and son.  I actually felt it in my heart.

For Robbie, who had observed this odd reunion through more detached and
objective eyes, today's encounter had provided an opportunity to test
some of his own conjectures about Tim.  Above all, Robbie wanted to know
whether, as he had predicted from my own behavior, Tim had experienced a
constant craving for action during his brief life.  From everything his
family said, that was indeed the case.  Again and again we were told of
Tim's tremendous energy and restlessness ranging from his childhood
attempts to run away from his older sisters through his more recent
decision to work at several different jobs during his high school years.

Reviewing these stories in the car, we were both reminded of my trip to
France, when I had been propelled by a mysterious, manic drive that
seemed to emanate from some other source.

Now I wondered whether there was any special meaning to the fact that I
had ended up in France, of all places.  Tim's family was of
French-Canadian ancestry.  Was that another link, or was I searching too
hard?

Some of the things we had learned in Maine were too remarkable to
ignore: Tim's love of chicken nuggets, for example, or his fondness for
green peppers.  And while nobody in Tim's family seemed to think there
had been anything unusual about his health, Robbie and I were both
struck by Tim's strong resistance to colds and infections.  For a
healthy person, of course, not getting sick seems so normal that it's
not even noticed.  To me, however, it feels like a miracle.

The one puzzle that we couldn't solve was how to interpret the negative
report about Tim that had come from John, the chaplain.  How did John's
depiction of a deeply troubled young man fit in with everything we had
just learned?  It was remotely possible, of course, that Tim's entire
family had been acting and putting on a show for us, perhaps without
even realizing it.  But that scenario seemed unlikely, and from
everything we have learned since, the family's description of Tim was
accurate.  By all accounts, he had been loving, sweet, and helpful.  I
have to conclude that the chaplain's report was wrong, although why and
how that happened remains a mystery.

Over the years, with the help of Tim's parents, his teachers, and his
friends, I have been able to fill in a few more details about him.  For
a long time I was curious about Tim's girlfriend, assuming he had one. I
now know that while there was no one girlfriend, Tim did have a big
crush on a girl who didn't happen to share his feelings.  When she
started going out with another boy a close friend of Tim's, in factTim
was distraught.

For years I wondered about this girl.  Was it possible that she looked
like the type of woman I had suddenly and inexplicably started noticing
and staring at after the transplant?  Apparently she did.  Although I
have never met her, I now know that the object of Tim's affections was
short and curvy, with curly blond hair.  Soon after the transplant, in
the dream where I had changed from a woman to a man and then back again,
I had seen a girl just like this, who was about to get married.  Her
image had stayed with me, and I can still picture it today a face and
figure completely different from the taller, darker women I used to find
attractive.  Could there possibly be a connection between Tim's favorite
girl and the woman in my dream?

I also learned that both of Tim's parents, not just his father, had been
unhappy about his riding a motorcycle.  "I don't want you buying one,"
June had told him.  "You don't need it, and it's too dangerous."

"Ma," he had replied, "if I die on the motorcycle, I'll fly straight to
heaven on it."

When I heard that, and especially the word "fly," I thought back to two
of my dreams.  In the gender-changing dream, Tim had flown right across
the highway, into another world.  And in the dream that finally led me
to contact the family, Tim had been about to fly up over the horizon.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"To die," he replied.  "I'm going to the other side."

"What's it like over there?"

"Oh, I come right back."

Did the real Tim believe on some level that death wasn't the end?  Did
he have a death wish?  Although I was finally getting some answers, each
new answer was leading to more questions.

As June described it later, it had taken some time and a fair amount of
consideration before the family agreed to donate Tim's organs.  The
doctors made their request, and the family discussed it.

"The kids said, 'Ma, what do you want to do?"'

"I said, 'Well, it's up to all of us."'

Then one of the sisters spoke up.  "Listen, if Timmy had a penny in his
pocket he'd give it to you, even if it was his last one.

That's the kind of person he was."

There was no argument about that.  When the family thought about what
Tim stood for, their decision was clear.  Later, Tim's parents and all
of his siblings signed organ donor cards.

During my initial visit to the family, I hadn't realized that Tim was
known all over town for his many acts of kindness.  Later on, however, I
heard stories.  The family had a neighbor who was old and infirm.  In
the winter, in the middle of the night, Tim would take it upon himself
to shovel this man's driveway so it would be clean in the morning.  At
school, when Tim overheard one of his favorite teachers admiring a
popular style of sneakers that her students were wearing, he discreetly
learned her shoe size and bought her a pair.  He brought flowers to
another teacher, and earrings for her little girls.  He was always
giving presents and doing favors.  And I heard again how, the week
before he died, Tim dropped in on friends, relatives, and teachers to
see if they needed anything done.  Every time I think about this, it
gives me chills.  It's as if he knew he was leaving.

I guess it's unavoidable: whenever I learn something new about Tim, I
search my memory to see if it corresponds with some change, however
minor, in my habits or personality.  Was there any link to Tim's
generosity?  I think so, although it's not especially dramatic.  My
sister and Ira have both told me that since the transplant I have become
more compassionate and thoughtful.  I've always enjoyed giving gifts,
but I seem to be giving them more often now.

From time to time I still wonder about changes in me that might be
related to my new male heart.  After the transplant, for example, I lost
the desire to cook.  I used to have a good touch in the kitchen, but
that's no longer-true.  Is this change related to Tim, or is there some
other explanation?  I'm also less bothered than I used to be by
perceived slights or critical remarks, which strikes me as another move
in the general direction of masculinity.

Before the transplant, I had a flair for putting clothes together and
coming up with interesting combinations.  After the transplant, I didn't
know how to dress, almost as if my feminine touch had disappeared.  My
color preference has also changed: I used to be drawn toward hot
colorsred, pink, and gold.  I had never liked blue or green and had
rarely worn them, but ever since the transplant I've been attracted to
these cooler colors, especially deep forest green.  I didn't attach any
great meaning to this change until somebody pointed out that green is
the universal symbol for new life. But it's also true that most men stay
away from hot colors, as I now do.

Again and again, people who knew Tim talked about his enormous drive to
keep moving.  Apparently it started early.  At the age of two, he
disappeared one morning when his father re fused to take him in the car.
One minute he was standing on the porch in his diaper; the next minute
he was gone.  When June couldn't find him anywhere, she frantically
called the police station. Fortunately, two girls in the neighborhood
had found a little boy toddling down the road.

Later, Tim would channel his love of motion into driving.

Even before he had his license, he used to drive a neighbor's car for
her.  "Don't worry," she told him.  "I'll pay the ticket if you get
caught." Before Tim bought his motorcycle, he bought a truck and spent
his limited free time fixing it up.  His friends remember that he loved
working on it, and that he was always thinking about the next vehicle he
could buy.

He was continually on the go.  He hated sitting around, and he didn't
like television or going to the movies.  He worked relentlessly
mornings, afternoons, nights, weekends, and holidays doing construction,
painting houses, washing dishes, shoveling snow.  All over town the
verdict was unanimous.  "He worked all the time."

"He loved to work."

"An extremely hard worker."

"A workaholic."

"Crazy hours." The owner of a food market where Tim was employed
recalled that he used to stop by even when he wasn't on duty, almost as
if he enjoyed just being around work.

Not surprisingly, Tim's many jobs didn't leave much time for school.  He
skipped a lot of classes, and although he was close with several of his
teachers, school was a burden for him.  He was good in math, but he
seemed to have had a learning disability that made reading difficult.
"It's hard to fit into a traditional high school when you can't read and
people don't understand that," said one of his teachers.  "He was smart
and highly motivated. He had another kind of intelligence, and a lot of
common sense."

Was Tim dyslexic?  If so, that might help explain one of the more subtle
changes I noticed after the transplant.  I used to be a terrific
speller, but in recent years, for no apparent reason, I have been
reversing letters.  I also take down directions incorrectly, and I mix
up the digits in phone numbers.  All of this, of course, might be a sign
of aging.  But while these errors don't occur often, before the
transplant they didn't happen at all.

Have I made Tim sound like a saint?  He wasn't, of course.

Like many teenagers, he sometimes got into mischief.  In the eighth
grade, he and his friends were suspended for drinking.

Once, covered with mud, he jumped into a teacher's swimming pool.  He
also had a temper, and although he was close with his siblings, he often
sparred with them.  There were fistfights, too including some with his
father.  "He wasn't a discipline problem," a teacher recalled, "but if
he felt something wasn't fair, he'd get into an argument."

"He did have a quick temper," said one of his employers.  "But after the
explosion he'd be very upset with himself.  He'd say things and regret
them, and he'd end up feeling twice as bad as the person he was angry
with."

Despite his temper, people who knew Tim said he was more mature than.his
peers.  He got along better with adults than with people his own age,
and one of Tim's teachers still has the receipt for the flowers she
bought for his funeral.  She can't explain why she kept it, but she
can't throw it away, either.

While I was completing this book, a reporter asked Tim's parents about
the day in 1991 when I first went to see them.  "It made me feel my son
came back to me," said Carl.  And June concurred.  "He might be gone,
but in a way he's still around."

"Do you believe," the reporter asked, "that in some way Claire picked up
part of Tim's spirit?"

June: "Yes, I believe it.  When she told us about the foods, it was a
shock.  My daughter said, 'Ma, I can't believe it.  That's the same
stuff Timmy liked."'

Carl: "His spirit is still there in those parts she received."

A few months after I met Tim's family, a producer from the Phil Donahue
Show called to ask whether I would come to New York to talk about my
post-transplant experience.  I've always enjoyed the limelight, and I
immediately said yes.

Three of Tim's sisters said they'd be happy to go on with me.

When the producer insisted there was room for only two family members,
the sisters wouldn't budge.  "Either all three of us go on," they said,
"or do the show without us." The producer backed down and invited all
three Annie, Josie, and Carla.

There were other guests as well, including Robbie and two members of our
New Haven research group.  For the sake of balance, the producer also
invited a heart transplant surgeon who was suitably skeptical of any
experience that couldn't be explained by medical science.

As it turned out, the surgeon wasn't needed.  The studio audience
provided all the skepticism and hostility a producer could have asked
for and then some.  Even the host was surprised by their strident
negativity.

Early in the program, Tim's sisters described my visit to their family.
Annie said she was skeptical before I arrived, because my story sounded
like something out of the movies.  But when I walked into the living
room, she said, "It was like meeting my brother all over again, seeing
him alive.  Claire was loving like Tim was.  There was so much feeling
that it was absolutely exhausting."

"When we met Claire," said Carla, "we all probed her and asked her
questions.  It was like she knew Timmy.  A lot of things she said were
true.  How would she know these things?  Every thing she was saying was
right.  It was just like him, like she was part of him."

"Did you feel your brother's presence?" Phil asked.

"Absolutely."

Phil asked me to recount the inhaling dream that had first made me aware
of Tim.  By then I had described it any number of times, but never
before had my account of the dream been greeted with laughter.  "Give
her a chance," Phil told the audience.

"Later in the program," Phil said, "you'll meet other heart recipients
who are at the very least scratching their heads over feelings that they
have experienced, post-op, feelings they never had before, that lead
them to wonder whether the central organ of the body, the heart muscle,
when transplanted into another human being whether somehow, accompanying
this transfer, is a change of personality, interests, heretofore
nonexistent.

How do we explain this dream by Claire?  Robert Bosnak, you're just who
we're looking for."

Robbie: "What struck me most when I started to work with Claire was her
tremendous drive and activity.  What I couldn't explain was this
tremendous drive, having to act constantly and do constantly."

Phil introduced the cardiac surgeon.  "His team has performed over two
hundred heart transplants," said Phil.  "Does he buy this?  What do you
think?  No!  Well, here comes the grinch.

Tell me how you think, you're the professional guy."

At least the surgeon wasn't hostile or rude.  "If Claire inherited the
kindness and the wonderful generosity of the donor family, that's great.
But I don't think she inherited anything else, other than the heart."

This last remark was greeted by loud applause.  Then Annie took him on:
"How can you say that?  How do you know how she feels?  You've never had
a heart transplant!"

Unknowingly, Annie had touched on one of the most common complaints from
the support groups I've been part of: that the doctors are usually quick
to dismiss our reactions and feelings as illusory or unreal, although
they themselves have never been in our situation.  Moreover, most
doctors and nurses don't even want to hear what we have to say.

The surgeon responded to Annie by saying, "The transplanted patients are
terribly sick.  Claire was an invalid, almost on her deathbed.  The end
of the line is there.  She couldn't do anything more.  Now, all of a
sudden, we're putting a Corvette engine and lungs into almost a dead
body, and the thing takes off and goes like crazy."

A viewer called in to say that before his heart transplant, he had
always hated Italian food.  After the operation, the first thing he
asked for was linguine.  He had a craving for spicy Italian food, and he
learned later that his donor was Italian.

Somebody asked how I felt about motorcycles.

"I dislike them," I said, thinking of Kirk.  "But a year after the
transplant I had a love affair with a much younger man who rode
motorcycles, and he had enormous energy, which seemed to match the
energy in my heart.  And he lived on the edge."

A woman asked if the people close to me felt that my personality had
changed.

"My daughter is sitting right here," I replied.  "And maybe she can
answer.

Amara had been dreading this moment.  Unlike her mother, she hates being
the center of attention.  I was enormously grateful that Amara had come
with me and had agreed to sit in the audience.  I was terribly nervous
on that stage, but every time I glanced at Amara, \who was smiling at me
from the front row, she calmed me down.  She had done me a great favor
by coming on the show, and she was repaying that kindness?  By putting
her on the spot.  Thanks a lot, Mom!

Amara replied, as, briefly as possible, that I had become more active
and adventurous after the transplant.

A woman in the audience stood up to echo the surgeon's skepticism: "Of
course she has more energy.  She got a new heart!

She got a second chance at life.  Of course."

Then Robbie said, "There may be a last vestige of personality left in
the heart.  The motor of a Corvette to use the doctor's analogy has a
different personality than the motor of a little car."

A few minutes later, Josie asked: "Why is it that the recipient can't
know who the donor is?  They should be given the choice.

Why wasn't Claire allowed to know our name?  It took a lot of courage
for her to come to our house."

The surgeon said, "To encumber both families with the knowledge of these
complex feelings becomes too difficult." In other words, Sorry, kids,
Father knows best.

To which Josie replied,''I don't think that decision should be left up
to the doctors and the hospitals.  The families should make that
decision!"

Near the end of the show, a woman stood up and said, "Traditional
medicine is very limited.  If something doesn't exist physically, it
doesn't exist.  When parts are taken from one person and moved to
another person, we don't have the language for it in our vocabulary. But
it's coming."

The next speaker was more direct: "I don't believe a damn word any of
you are saying.  I think you all need new brains!"

Phil: "I feel so much warm, positive energy!"

As the show ended, the surgeon was saying that the human heart was
"nothing but a stupid pump."

I should have seen it coming.  Although attitudes are definitely
changing, we still live in an age where scientific, Western medicine is
seen as the only valid truth.  Now, there's a lot to be said for
scientific, Western medicine, and nobody knows that better than I.
Without it, I wouldn't be alive.  But just because a phenomenon can't be
explained by medical science doesn't mean it can't happen.

Some of the negative energy from the Donahue show reverberated for
years.  Gail, who watched it at home, was angry at me for implying, in
her view, that it was easy and appropriate for transplant recipients to
track down their donors.  The next time we spoke, she shocked me by
suggesting that I had seen Tim's obituary before calling her with his
name which made me so angry I hung up on her.  For a long time we were
out of touch, which was terribly difficult for both of us.  I have
always loved Gail, who had touched my heart both figuratively and
literally, and I know that Gail loves me.  We eventually resumed our
friendship, and Gail apologized for what she said.  But things have
never been quite the same between us.

There was also a break with Tim's sisters.  A couple of years later,
after my third visit to Maine, they wrote that their family's
relationship with me had become too painful, and they implied that I
cared about them only as a source of information about my donor.

I was terribly upset when their letter arrived.  Should I respond?  Was
it better to do nothing?  I thought about it for weeks.  I meditated on
it, and spoke to my heart.  It was almost as if I were asking Tim what I
should do.

One morning, I focused on the image of a long-stemmed rose that I had
seen the day before on a box of candy in a drugstore.

Why a rose?  Perhaps because in one of my dreams, the boy on a ship, who
seemed to represent Tim, had given me a picture of a rose.  And on the
second Christmas after we met, June had sent me a blanket she had
crocheted, which was decorated with pink and blue roses.  I bought the
candy and sent it to the parents of my heart with a simple note, saying
that I was thinking of them with love and prayers.

A few days later, I was back at Yale for my annual exam, which always
includes a heart catheterization and a biopsy.  This is in variably a
stressful time, because there's always a possibility that my heart or
lungs are undergoing some form of rejection that I'm not even aware of.
While I was there, Amara reached me to say that June had called to thank
me for the candy, and to let me know I was always welcome in their home.

I was very moved, and June's message was even more welcome at this
vulnerable time.  I felt I had followed my heart and that Tim had wanted
me to remain in touch.  I still speak with June and Carl, but for now,
at least, Tim's sisters and I are going our separate ways.  My presence
reminds them of a terribly painful event in their lives, and although
I'm sad that we're not currently in touch, I can understand how they
feel.

Moving On

WHILE MY connection to Tim is no longer as intense or as mystifying as
it was before I met his family, three subsequent events have further
illuminated the link between us.  Oddly enough, two of them took place
abroad.

First, a little background.  Soon after I started working with Robbie,
he suggested that I might want to experiment with choreographing various
images from my dreams as another way of exploring them.  The idea
appealed to me, and with the help of another Jungian analyst who was
also a dancer, I formed a small company called Dream Dancers.  In 1991 I
hosted a "Celebration of Life" party for transplant recipients and the
hospital staff at YaleNew Haven Hospital, where our dance group
performed a piece based on a composite of my various post transplant
dream images.

Around this time, Robbie began to organize what has since become an
ongoing series of international conferences on dreams, where he brings
together analysts, therapists, academics, artists, writers, policy
makers, and other interested people from all over the world.  Because
dream choreography seemed to offer an exciting new approach, Robbie
invited me to lead a workshop at the first of these gatherings,
"Dreaming in Russia," which was held just outside Moscow in the summer
of 1991.  My workshop, which was one of many being offered at the
conference, would include elements of dance, movement, meditation,
music, and dream work.  With participants attending from many different
countries and speaking a variety of languages-, there was a good deal of
interest in a technique that explored the images and environments of
dreams through movement, rather than words.  The workshop was a success,
and on the final night of the conference we performed some of our pieces
for the entire group.

The whole conference was amazing, not only because it was the first
meeting of its kind, but also because most of us who were coming from
outside Russia happened to arrive in Moscow on the first day of the
historic coup attempt of August 1991.  Suddenly, the whole world was
watching to see which way Russia would go forward into freedom, or back,
as the planners of the coup preferred, toward Russia's totalitarian
past.  Although the coup soon failed, for a few days we all experienced
some anxious moments.  I was feeling especially vulnerable, as I had
brought along only enough cyclosporine for two weeks.  As we watched,
cut off from the rest of the world, the Russian people went through what
seemed to me, at least, the political equivalent of a heart transplant.
To their great joy, and ours, the operation succeeded with a minimum of
rejection.

From the moment we landed in Russia, I had the sense of coming home.
Seventy-eight years earlier, my grandparents had escaped from this
troubled and violent land, together with their three-year-old daughter.
They had left in search of political and religious freedom, and I felt
privileged to be returning to Russia just like the very freedoms that my
grandparents had yearned for were being recognized and valued.

How incredibly different this trip was from my visit to France the
previous year.  In France, all I had known about my heart was that it
was inscrutable and apparently hyperactive.  In France, Tim was
returning to the land of his ancestors.  In Russia, by contrast, I was
leading my heart.  I had to talk to my heart; I meditated to calm it
down and get it in balance.  The dramatic difference between these two
trips seemed to epitomize my developing relationship with Tim: instead
of identifying with the youthful spirit within me, I was now starting to
integrate my new heart into my own personality and identity.

When the conference was over, my host family took me to see the sights
of Moscow, where I was overwhelmed by a visit to a beautiful and ornate
church.  Inside that magnificent cathedral, with my Catholic heart
beating strongly in my chest, I felt pulled to honor my donor.  So I lit
a candle for Tim, offered a silent prayer, and bought a set of amber
beads for his mother.

The entire time I was in that church, I experienced a powerful surge of
love for Tim and his whole family.  And I was grateful that their
religious tradition, too, was a beneficiary of Russia's growing freedom.

The couple I stayed with in Moscow belonged to a large, extended
familylike Tim's, in a way, and also like the family I had been part of
long ago.  Although my hosts, Zena and Ar men, lived in a tiny, cramped
apartment, they had strong, important relationships with a whole
community of friends and relatives.  And, just like my Russian
grandparents, they also spoke naturally about their dreams.  In fact,
almost everything in their home the lacy curtains, the vinyl tablecloth,
the makeshift furniture was reminiscent of my grandparents' apartment in
the Bronx during the early 1 950s. - When the time came to return to
America, I didn't want to leave.  After only a week with my hosts, I had
become more at tacked than I realized.  I felt a special warmth in
Moscow, and a sense of connectedness.  Suddenly my modest house on the
ocean seemed like a huge indulgence.  I was acutely aware of leaving a
society where people had so little and shared so much, and returning to
a place where people had so much and, all too often, shared so little.

Two years later, at a similar dream conference in Greece, I experienced
another emotional link to Tim.  Soon after I arrived, one of the
participants introduced me to an American couple in their fifties. Their
son had died two years ago, and they had donated his organs.  But they
didn't seem eager to talk about it, and I didn't press them.

The next morning, the father showed up at my dream choreography
workshop.  He was sitting next to me, and when his as signed workshop
partner abruptly left him to team up with someone else, he turned toward
me.  As the leader, I was avail able to help anyone who needed a
partner, so the two of us began working together.  Within minutes, this
man was initiating a series of silent gestures that involved giving and
taking from one heart to another.  Because I knew his story, I could see
that he, as the donor, was offering up the organs of his son.  I, as the
recipient, began accepting them, as we symbolically ritualized the
process of donating and receiving the organs of life.  It was clear that
both his movements and mine were coming from a deep place within each of
us.

Later, when the session was over, the participants in the workshop were
offered the opportunity to show their pieces to the rest of the group.
To my surprise, my partner, who seemed to cherish his privacy, was eager
to share what we had done.

Our performance was even more emotional the second time, and we expanded
it into a longer piece.  When we were finished, we collapsed, sobbing,
into each other's arms.  Although the other participants didn't know the
literal story we were acting out, they were transfixed.

The next day, a close friend of this man told me that this was the first
time the father had been able to grieve for his son.  But I wondered if
he knew that this ritual had been just as important for me.  Although
the father of my own heart was thousands of miles away, I felt that I
was going through these movements not only for myself, but also for
Carl, as if this performance could in some way help him repair his
relationship with his deceased son.

And maybe; somehow, it did.  The fractured connection between Carl and
Tim had been tugging at me ever since my first visit to Maine.  Father's
Day had come along a few days later, and when I found myself in a card
shop I bought a beautiful card for Carl.  But I never mailed itnot only
because it felt presumptuous, but also because I had the feeling that
Tim wouldn't have sent his father a card at least not at that stage of
their relationship.

Months after the conference in Greece, when I returned to Maine to visit
Tim's parents, I noticed a real difference in Carl's reaction to me.  He
smiled, he was outgoing, and I felt that we were becoming friends.  He
gave me a flower from his garden, and he tugged at my heart when he
said, "You are part of our family now."

Later that day, at Tim's grave, Carl said, "You know, June, something's
going on up there.  Doesn't Claire remind you of my sister, especially
her eyes?"

June laughed.  But it was clear to me that Carl was feeling the
connection between us.  Somehow, since my previous visit, some healing
and reconciliation had occurred between father and son.

Each year, when the anniversary of my transplant rolls around, I have
dreams that feel especially significant.  On the first anniversary of my
new life, I dreamed that my mother came to me and placed a large gold
amulet on my chest.  The second year, I dreamed about a horrible noise
that was reminiscent of a surgical saw slicing through skin.  On my
third anniversary, I saw my self floating in space, covered in white,
and shaking, as if my heart had just been shocked back into life as it
had been during the transplant.

In 1992, on my fourth anniversary, I dreamed that I was revving up
twenty-two motorcycles that I was supposed to drive around town to
commemorate something but I didn't know what.  The motorcycles seemed to
be an obvious reference to Tim, but why, I wondered, where there
twenty-two of them?  Was there any special significance to that number?
Then it hit me: this was the fourth anniversary of the transplant, which
meant that Tim, had he lived, would now be twenty-two.

This dream seemed to be calling me to reenact Tim's great passion riding
a motorcycle.  I called a friend, a dancer who owns a motorcycle, and on
the last Saturday night in May the two of us went out dancing.  I was
wearing an evening dance dress, high heels, and a motorcycle helmet, and
as the sun was setting over the Charles River, he drove me at full speed
from one dance to another.  My heart was exhilarated to be zipping along
like this, although the rest of me, frankly, found the experience a
little frightening.

As the evening went on, I seemed to be enjoying myself less and less.
Something was changing, and although I didn't realize this at the time,
I now believe that ritualizing the motorcycle dream allowed me to gently
release Tim's spirit.  I had finally achieved my new identity, a kind of
third being that was neither the old Claire nor the new Tim, but some
combination of the two.

It was no accident, I believe, that soon after this evening I was able
to welcome a new man into my life in a more permanent way.  It was as if
Tim had stepped aside, leaving room in my heart for somebody else.

Ever since the transplant, I have been interested in ballroom dancing I
love it all, from the costumes to the intricate foot work, and I enjoy
the fact that my fellow dancers are a truly diverse group. They are
amateurs in the best sense of the word:

they love dancing and they do it for pleasure.

It was at a dance that I met Jerry, my new companion.  A1 though we come
from very different backgrounds and outlooks, for the past few years we
have been partners both in life and in dance.  We often enter
competitions together, competing in both "smooth" (fox-trot, waltz,
Viennese waltz, and tango) and "Latin" (swing, cha-cha, mambo, rumba,
and merengue).  And partly through our dancing, Jerry has brought me
back into my body, back toward the earth.

Does Jerry, too, have a connection with Tim?  I wouldn't have thought
so, but life is full of surprises.  When I first met Jerry, he was
involved with a woman named Cindy.  Later on, when Jerry and I were
together, we were celebrating my birthday when he suddenly realized that
July 29 was also Cindy's birthday.  Later that evening, he overheard me
telling someone that my donor had come from Milford, Maine.

"Milford?" said Jerry.  "Did you say Milford?"

"Yes, why?"

"That's where Cindy comes from.  We used to drive up there to visit her
family.  I did a few outreach programs at a church in Milford with some
of the teenagers."

If this were a novel, Jerry and Tim would have known each other.  But
Tim's name didn't ring a bell.  Maybe it's enough that Jerry was
involved with two women who were born on the same day.  And that one of
these women came from the same little town as the young man whose heart
and lungs were keeping the other woman alive.

Other Voices

FOR YEARS.  Robbie and I have wondered whether the kinds of things that
have happened to me have also happened, in one way or another, to a
significant number of other heart recipients.  If our New Haven research
group is any guide, the answer may be yes.  On the other hand, our
sample was too small and self-selected to suggest any larger
implications.

It sounds like a simple question, but it's not.  For one thing, although
hospital policies are beginning to change, most transplant recipients
know little or nothing about their donors.  For another, those people
who do experience puzzling or provocative dreams, or who notice
surprising or inexplicable changes in their lives, are generally
reluctant to talk about it.  After all, no body enjoys being thought of
as a kook.  The doctors and nurses who care for transplant recipients
are generally skeptical, dismissive, or even contemptuous of such
testimonies, which are typically seen as being caused by the powerful
medications that all of us must take.  When a recipient asks about a
puzzling personal change, he or she is often told, as I was, "Don't
worry about it.  Get on your exercise bike."

Another obstacle to investigating this question is the almost inevitable
occurrence of denial, which appears to be common among heart-transplant
patients.  In the early 1980s, Dr.  Francois Maia Canadian psychiatrist,
interviewed twenty new heart recipients within three months of their
transplants.  "The most striking finding," he reported, "was the
presence of denial in 18 of the 20 patients (90%)." As examples of
denial, he cited such statements as "I've no feelings about having a new
heart,"

and "I never think about the donor."

Dr.  Mai, it should be noted, was referring to basic feelings and
curiosity about the transplant or the donor, rather than unusual or
mysterious occurrences.  He also suggested that such denial, at least in
the early stages of a patient's recovery, may serve an important
protective and adaptive function.  "It is not surprising," he concluded,
"that feelings of anxiety, conflict, and ambivalence were present and
only thinly disguised.  Denial may be seen as a means of coping with, or
perhaps of postponing these feelings until they could be better
accommodated."*

In another study, a cardiac surgeon reported that one of his patients, a
used-car dealer, seemed to be showing no anxiety about his recent heart
transplant.  A week after the operation, the surgeon showed the patient
his old heart, which was preserved in a jar of formaldehyde.

"Doesn't it make you feel a little odd looking at your heart?" the
surgeon asked.  "Don't you have some sort of emotional tie to it?"

Apparently not.  "I've owned a lot of cars in my life," the patient
replied.  "Not one of them did I develop an emotional attachment to."

* Franc,ois M.  MaiM.D., "Graft and Donor Denial in Heart Transplant
Recipients," American Journal of Psychiatry, vol.  143, no.  9
(September 1986), pp.

1159-tl61;p."61.

t Quoted in Pietro Castelnuovo-Tedesco, "Cardiac Surgeons Look at
Transplantation," Seminars in Psychiatry, vol.  3, no.  I (February
1971),pp.5-16;p.7.1 especially like this story because it reverses the
stereotype: here the surgeon is surprised that the patient is
emotionally uninvolved.

rOT H E R VO I C E 5 This, of course, may be an extreme example of
denial.  But if heart transplant recipients typically repress even a
mild curiosity about their donors, they would be even more likely to
avoid any thoughts or feelings they might have about taking on some
aspects of the donor's spirit.  For many people, the idea of carrying
another presence inside is so threatening, and so utterly preposterous,
that one common response, surely, would be to repress or deny it
completely.  At the same time, the likelihood that such feelings would
be repressed or denied certainly doesn't prove that the recipients ever
felt them in the first place.

There is also conscious denial.  A year or two after their transplants,
many recipients prefer to look forward, not back.  The period following
a transplant is often a painful and difficult one, and even if some
events during that time were difficult to under stand, recipients often
choose to focus instead on their new lives.

Another, very different concern is also part of this skeptical mix.
Among both recipients and transplant professionals, I have found a real
and understandable fear that any public discussion of this controversial
and potentially disturbing topic might exacerbate an already-serious
problem.  Ever since human organ transplants began, a severe shortage of
donors has led to thou sands of preventable deaths each year.  While I
don't believe that a public airing of these issues will scare off
potential organ donors, I certainly understand this concern.  So let me
be clear:

organ donation really is the gift of life, and nothing I have said or
speculated about in these pages is meant to obscure or dilute this
important truth.

Despite all the reasons that make it difficult to document unusual
occurrences among transplant recipients, at least one re searcher has
collected quite a few of them.  Dr.  Paul Pearsall, a neuropsychologist
at Wayne State University School of Medicine and a bestselling author
and lecturer who underwent a bone marrow transplant in 1987, is writing
a book whose working title is Cellular Memories: The New Psychology of
the Heart.

When I spoke with Dr.  Pearsall in early 1997, he had gathered more than
seventy personal testimonies from transplant recipients whose
experiences cannot easily be explained by contemporary Western medicine
Dr.  Pearsall's interest in this subject began after his own transplant.
A fellow patient, who was also undergoing a bone marrow transplant'
insisted that he could feel the presence of his donor.  Dr.  Pearsall
asked the man what he thought his donor was like.

"Some kind of artist,', he replied.  "Maybe a painter or a musician."

Later, the patient was informed that his donor's hobby was oil painting.

Following a recent lecture on the unusual experiences re ported by
transplant recipients, Dr.  Pearsall was challenged by an orthopedic
surgeon in the audience.  Some recipients, said the surgeOn, may need to
tell these stories, which, he added, are invariably fabricated' event
when the patient sincerely believes that such things actually happened.

"If these patients 'natal' to make up stories," Dr.  Pearsall replied,
"they seem awfully reluctant to talk about them.  They are as bothered
and amazed by these experiences as anyone.  As a transplant recipient
myself, I may be a little more willing to listen to the story rather
than doubting the teller.  As a doctor, I usually talk too much and
listen too little anyway."

When we spoke, Dr Pearsall referred to me and the other transplant
recipients he had interviewed as "white crows"a reference to the
psychologist William James, who wrote that in l


2 1 OTHER VOICES

order to disprove the law that all crows are black, it is enough to
produce a single white crow.  Dr.  Pearsall believes that the existence
of these "white crows" requires a whole new set of explanations, which
will, I hope, be explored in his book.

When Robert Bosnak and I interviewed transplant recipients, we, too,
found that most of them were not especially eager to discuss their
unusual experiences.  In most cases, the people we spoke with asked us
not to use their real names, and we honored that request.  The day will
come, I expect, when cases like mine will be studied in a systematic
way.  Until then, we will have to make do with anecdotal evidence.

A transplant nurse in Florida told us about a heart-transplant patient
who, before her operation, had suffered from an extreme fear of water a
fear so debilitating that she wouldn't even take a shower.  Soon after
her transplant, this same woman felt a great desire to go swimming and
sailing.  A surgical resident, who wasn't authorized to disclose this
information, in formed the woman's incredulous family that her donor had
been an avid sailor who died in a boating accident.

This same nurse also told us about a middle-aged man who received a new
heart from a young donor who was killed in a motorcycle accident.  The
recipient, a born-again Christian, woke up from the operation cursing
and swearing, which was completely out of character.  Because the donor
had died at the same hospital where the transplant was performed, the
donor's mother ended up meeting the recipient.  She confirmed that the
man was speaking just like her son, and was even using some of the same
mannerisms.

If our informal survey is any indication, the most commonly noticed
changes reported by transplant recipients have to do with new food
preferences.  This seems to be especially common among recipients who
have received a new kidney: a Michigan man who never liked coffee
received a kidney from his sister, a big coffee drinker; soon he, too,
was drinking coffee.  A

woman who donated a kidney to her husband reported that he now craves
what used to be her favorite foods.  She still enjoys them, but now that
one of her kidneys is gone, she no longer loves these foods.  We heard
many such stories among both kidney and heart recipients the steak-eater
who became a vegetarian;

the milk-drinker who began to hate milk; the man who always wanted to
like wine, but never enjoyed it until after his transplant. The number
and the persistence of these accounts seem to suggest that food
preferences may be based not only in the mind or the taste buds, but may
have some deeper biological roots.

The most amazing case we heard about is the man who actually ran a race
against his old heart.  It sounds impossible, but this is how it
happened.  Mr.  A., a patient in England, was suffering from cystic
fibrosis; although he needed a new pair of lungs, his heart was strong.
He received a heart-lung transplant, where upon his old but
still-healthy heart was removed and implanted into the body of Mr.  B.,
whose own heart was failing.  (This type of procedure, which doesn't
happen often, is known as a

"domino" transplant.  )

In 1994, at the annual Transplant Games in England, Mr.  A.

had the singular experience, surely unparalleled in human history, of
racing against his old heart which, from its new location in Mr.  B."s
chest, outran its former owner.  After the race, the two men sat down
and talked together.  Mr.  B.  told Mr.  A.

about his new food cravings, and Mr.  A.  confirmed that these were also
his favorites.  (Whether they were still Mr.  Al's favorite foods, now
that he no longer had his original heart, is not clear.

In New Mexico, a young recipient received the heart and lungs of a girl
who had been chased and murdered by members of an Asian gang.  Although
the murder hadn't yet been announced, when the young man awoke from the
operation he described a vision he'd had of a blond girl being chased
down the street by small, slightly built men who wanted to kill her.
Later, the girl's mother discussed this incident on a television talk
show.  One of the recipient's nurses wrote about it in the Buddhist
magazine Tricycle, and wondered if this incident might lend credence to
theories about "cellular memory."

Harriet, a physician, was one of Paul Pearsall's patients.  Years ago,
on a rainy night, she and her husband were driving home from a party.
They'd had an argument, and now they were riding in silence.  The only
sound in their car was the persistent clicking of the windshield wipers.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, another car came crashing through their
windshield.  Harriet was knocked unconscious; her husband was killed.

He had signed an organ donor card, and when Harriet awoke in the
hospital, she weakly gave permission for his heart to be donated.  Years
after this event, she came to Dr.  Pearsall for help.

She had tried everything, she told him, including psychics and mediums,
in an effort to make contact with her deceased husband.  She asked Dr.
Pearsall if it might be possible for her to meet the young man who
received her husband's heart.  "I want to feel that heart again," she
told him.  "I know this sounds crazy, but I can't help it."

After many calls and conversations, Pearsall was able to arrange a
meeting between Harriet and the recipient of her husband's heart.  As
Pearsall and Harriet waited for the young man to arrive, Harriet
suddenly said, "He's here.  I can feel him." The recipient, who was
coming with his mother, wasn't expected for another half hour.  But a
moment later, the young man walked into the room.

"Can I hold you?" Harriet asked him.  For several moments they stood
chest to chest, crying.  Later, Harriet asked if she could feel his
heart.  The young man nodded and placed her hand against his naked
chest.  "I love you, sweetie," she said.  Then she slowly removed her
hand.  The young man put on his shirt and nodded again, as if to
indicate that he understood to whom this comment was directed.

"I felt him," Harriet said softly.  "I could almost hear him.  Not his
voice, but him.  I could feel his essence, his energy.  I know it's okay
now."

The young man began to giggle.  "I'm sorry," he said, "but I suddenly
feel lighthearted.  For the first time, my heart actually feels light."

[lis mother, who hadn't said much, suddenly spoke up:

"That's the one thing the doctors couldn't explain.  My son has always
said that his new heart was too heavy in his chest.  The doctors assured
him it was all in his mind, but he kept saying it was too heavy."

"It isn't anymore," her son said.  "It feels like it just got opened up,
or cleared out."

He and Harriet talked a little more, and discussed several changes in
the recipient that seemed to correlate with Harriet's husband.  Then,
just before he left, the young man turned to Harriet and said, "You
know, there's just one thing I don't understand. Ever since the
transplant, I've been bothered by the clicking of the windshield wipers
on my car.  I don't suppose you would know what that's about?"

Searching for Answers

"I CAN 'T B LAME you for feeling this way," a doctor told me not long
ago.  "If I were carrying somebody else's heart and lungs within me, I'd
probably have all kinds of thoughts and fantasies about the donor.  For
centuries, poets and artists have told us that the heart is a great
repository of spirit and emotion.  That's a beautiful idea, but
clinically there's nothing to it.  The heart is just a pump."

This, of course, is the view of contemporary Western medicine.  I say
"contemporary" because until the seventeenth century, the heart wasn't
seen as a pump at all.  In antiquity, it was regarded as the center of
wisdom and emotion.  In some ancient societies, victorious warriors
would eat the hearts of their vanquished enemies in order to acquire
their strength.  In the He brew Bible, where the word let (heart) occurs
more than a thousand times, the heart was seen as the center of both
knowledge and morality.  Aristotle believed the heart was the center of
thought and sensation.  In the Middle Ages, kings and prominent
clergymen would arrange for their bodies to be buried in one graveyard
and their hearts in another.

In 1648, in one of the most significant discoveries in the his r

218 A CHANGE OF HEART

"Can I hold you?" Harriet asked him.  For several moments they stood
chest to chest, crying.  Later, Harriet asked if she could feel his
heart.  The young man nodded and placed her hand against his naked
chest.  "I love you, sweetie," she said.  Then she slowly removed her
hand.  The young man put on his shirt and nodded again, as if to
indicate that he understood to whom this comment was directed.

"I felt him," Harriet said softly.  "I could almost hear him.  Not his
voice, but him.  I could feel his essence, his energy.  I know it's okay
now."

The young man began to giggle.  "I'm sorry," he said, "but I suddenly
feel lighthearted.  For the first time, my heart actually feels light."

His mother, who hadn't said much, suddenly spoke up: "That's the one
thing the doctors couldn't explain.  My son has always said that his new
heart was too heavy in his chest.  The doctors assured him it was all in
his mind, but he kept saying it was too heavy."

"It isn't anymore," her son said.  "It feels like it just got opened up,
or cleared out."

:

,

He and Harriet talked a little more, and discussed several changes in
the recipient that seemed to correlate with Harriet's 3 husband.  Then,
just before he left, the young man turned to Harriet and said, "You
know, there's just one thing I don't understand. Ever since the
transplant, I've been bothered by the <.

clicking of the windshield wipers on my car.  I don't suppose you would
know what that's about?"

Searching for Answers

"I CAN ' T BLAME you for feeling this way," a doctor told me not long
ago.  "If I were carrying somebody else's heart and lungs within me, I'd
probably have all kinds of thoughts and fantasies about the donor.  For
centuries, poets and artists have told us that the heart is a great
repository of spirit and emotion.  That's a beautiful idea, but
clinically there's nothing to it.  The heart is just a pump."

This, of course, is the view of contemporary Western medicine.  I say
"contemporary" because until the seventeenth century, the heart wasn't
seen as a pump at all.  In antiquity, it was regarded as the center of
wisdom and emotion.  In some ancient societies, victorious warriors
would eat the hearts of their vanquished enemies in order to acquire
their strength.  In the Hebrew Bible, where the word let

(heart) occurs more than a thousand times, the heart was seen as the
center of both knowledge and morality.  Aristotle believed the heart was
the center of thought and sensation.  In the Middle Ages, kings and
prominent clergymen would arrange for their bodies to be buried in one
graveyard and their hearts in another.

In 1648, in one of the most significant discoveries in the history of
medicine, the English physician William Harvey proclaimed to the world
that the heart, through a continual series of contractions, pumps blood
throughout the body and returns it to its source.  Today, of course,
nobody argues this point.  But to acknowledge what is now obvious that
the heart is a pump is not the same as insisting that it is only a pump.
As we'll see, some scientists believe that the heart may actually be a
good deal more.

At this point, frankly, I am out of my element.  While I can speak with
confidence about the precise nature of my own experiences, when it comes
to explaining these events I have no special knowledge or expertise.
While I seem to have inherited some aspects of Tim's spirit and
personality, I don't pretend to know how this happened.

But because I'm too curious to let it go at that, I have asked several
open-minded scientists, authors, and other experts how they would
account for my experience.  A number of respondents used the phrase
"cellular memory," although they seemed to be divided as to exactly what
the term means, and whether it should be regarded as fact or theory.
This phrase, incidentally, was originally used with regard to the immune
system; decades after receiving a polio vaccine, for example, our bodies
still retain a "memory" of that particular antigen.

Deepak Chopra is among those who seem to assume an enhanced
understanding of cellular memory.  In one of his popular books, he
reports that some transplant patients, after receiving a new kidney,
liver, or heart, begin to participate in their donors' memories.  As he
puts it, "Associations that belonged to another person start being
released when that person's tissues are placed inside a stranger." After
describing my own case, Chopra offers this interpretation:

:.

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2 2 1 SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

Rather than seeking a supernatural explanation for such incidents, one
could see them as confirmation that our bodies are made of experiences
transformed into physical expression.  Because experience is something
we incorporate (literally, a make into a body"), our cells have been
instilled with our memories; thus, to receive someone else's cells is to
receive their memories at the same time.  *

While many scientists do not accept the idea of cellular memory, a
growing number now believe that every cell in our body has its own
"mind." Some go further, and postulate that if you transfer tissues from
one body to another, the cells from the first.  body will carry memories
into the second body.

But what kinds of memories can exist in human organs?  Like most people,
I used to assume that all of our intelligence was concentrated in the
brain.  But that was before I learned about the work of Candace Pert,
the biochemist who discovered that at least one aspect of our minds was
distributed throughout our bodies.  Pert found that the brain and the
body communicate with each other through short chains of ammo acids
known as neuropeptides and receptors.  Human emotions, says Pert, are
triggered by neuropeptides attaching themselves to receptors, which
stimulates an electrical change in neurons.

While peptides were known to exist in the brain, Pert and her colleagues
have found them throughout the body, including the heart.  There are
even neuropeptides in our stomachs, which, I suppose, gives a whole new
meaning to the expression

"gut feeling."

Dozens of these peptides have now been identified, and each

* Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind (New York, 1993), p.  23.

has its own type of receptor.  Receptors, which are situated on the
surface of the cell, are often compared to locks, with the neuropeptides
functioning as keys.  Unless the right key is applied to the appropriate
lock, nothing happens.

When Pert first began her research, she, too, assumed that ."

the mind and the emotions were located in the brain.  Now, she says. she
can no longer make a strong distinction between body 'if

;1 J ' .

and mind.

I asked Bruce Lipton, a former Stanford research scientist who was
trained in cellular and developmental biology, how Pert's ideas might
apply to transplant recipients:

A transplanted heart comes with the donor's unique set of
self-receptors, which differ, naturally, from those of the recipient. As
a result, the recipient now possesses cells which respond to two
different "identities." Not every recipient will sense that a set of
cells within their body is now responding to a second signal.  But if
anyone is going to experience this change, it might well be a dancer who
is acutely aware of her own body.  As more and more transplants are
performed, I think we'll see a growing number of people reporting these
experiences.

Here's another way to look at it.  You're listening to a portable radio,
and the batteries go dead.  Did the broadcast stop?  Of course not.  You
can put in new batteries, or you can get another radio and tune it to
the same station.  Our biological bodies are like cellular radios, and
each of our cells is tuned to the same station through our molecular
antennae.  Our identities are the stations, and even if we die, if our
cells are still tuned to our station, they'll still play it

even if those cells are now in another person's body.

'.", :!

3


223 SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

Bruce Lipton urged me to contact Clever Backster, and I did.

Backster, a pioneer in the development and application of lie detectors,
first came to public attention in the 1960s, when his experiments
suggested that plants could communicate with other forms of life on a
cellular level, and could even experience what appeared to be Me
botanical equivalent of certain human emotions.

These days, Backster performs experiments with human cells, which lead
him to believe that leukocytes (white blood cells) can communicate with
each other even when some of these cells have been separated from the
rest of the body.  In a series of experiments, Backster has removed
white cells from the mouths of volunteers.  These cells are then
centrifuged separated out with a kind of high-speed spin dryer placed in
a test tube, and hooked up to a kind of electroencephalograph, which is
normally used to monitor brain waves.  Backster has found that when the
donor is subjected to certain emotional stimuli, such as fear,
excitement, or anger, there is usually an unmistakable reaction from the
separated cells, even if they are miles away.

I asked Backster whether these findings had any implications for
transplant recipients.

"The only cells I've worked with," he replied, "come from the gums and
the roof of the mouth.  If we can project onto heart cells, then some
form of communication might still exist with the cells of the donors
except for the fact that the donor is dead.  I've been able to show that
separated cells can communi cate with the cells of live donors.  Can
they also communicate with the cells of dead donors?  I don't know the
answer.  At that point you'd be getting into metaphysics, which is a
whole other discussion."

crating room:

Julie Motz, whose work has been featured on NBC's Datelined and in The
New York Times Magazine, is an "energy healer" who has participated in
open-heart surgeries and heart-transplant operations at
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York At first she worked
with patients before and after their surgeries, preparing their minds
and bodies for the operation, and helping them when the surgery was
over.  Eventually she became curious as to whether she could also be
effective within the op

224 A CHANGE OF HEART

As a healer, much of my work involves uncovering the emotional states
which accompany physical conditions, and helping my clients to
experience them.  I had long been aware that the body appeared to hold
memories in different areas, and that these could be released through
energy and touch.  From Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in Massachusetts, I
learned that each cell in the body acts like a brain and can be
consciously addressed.

Sometimes our tissues carry the energy of specific emotions which have
not been consciously processed.  For example, when I ask heart
transplant patients to go down inside their bodies and "be their blood,"
a feeling of sadness often comes to me in my own blood, which I believe
is picking up a sympathetic vibration from theirs.  Later, when I ask
these patients to allow their blood to thank their old heart for all it
has done for them, and to lovingly say goodbye to it, the sadness
gradually eases.

Claire, I believe that the cells of the organs that were transplanted
into you had memory, including both ideation and emotion.  These
memories were communicated to the other cells in your body, including
your nervous system, which then picked up these messages and sent them
to your r


22(

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

brain.  Your brain, acting like a tuner or receiver, then turned them
into conscious memory.

Like Julie Motz, Paul Pearsall, the neuropsychologist who is writing a
book about heart recipients, also speaks in terms of the energy that
exists in our bodies:

Anyone who receives a new heart is getting a big ball of subtle energy.
Ancient cultures have known about subtle energy throughout history, and
have viewed it as the vital force of all creation.  The indigenous
peoples of the world have more than a hundred different names for this
force, and unlike us, they have always placed their faith in its power.
The Chinese call it chit The Japanese call it A.  In Hawaii it's known
as Mana.  Mana is the spirit of life itself, and the place where
memories are stored.  No matter how materialistic our modern world has
become, something keeps tugging at our hearts and drawing us back to the
energy that brings us life, unites us in love, and leaves our physical
body when we die.  Physicists call this energy "the fifth force." It's
the same energy that keeps messing up the "controlled" experiments of
scientists and accounts for "spontaneous remissions" in so-called
terminal cases.

I don't have much doubt about cellular memory.  The more interesting
question, at least to me, is, Why do some people have these experiences,
and not others?  What I've learned from the dozens of organ recipients
I'vein terviewed is that the individuals who feel these changes are
unusually aware of their bodies.  They're often artists, painters, or
poets creative people, in other words, who are introspective and paying
attention.

Pearsall offers an intriguing response to those who wonder if the
unusual experiences of some transplant recipients might be a result of
the potent antirejection medications that we all must take:

I don't doubt for a moment that the lethal substances we pump into these
people can have powerful psychological effects.  But maybe there's
another way to understand this psy chopharmacology.  Why are these
stories so consistent?

Why do recipients have the memories of a donor they never knew, and whom
we can sometimes identify?  Maybe these drugs act like LSD or some other
hallucinogenic agent, and enhance perception in a way that helps us look
where we never looked before.  Is it not possible that our immuno
suppressant drugs are somehow lowering our patients'

thresholds for accessibility to the cellular memories we all have?

Paul Pearsall referred me to the HeartMath Institute in Boulder Creek,
California, where researchers are studying the energy of the heart as
well as the connection and possible communication between the heart and
the brain.  Rollin Mc Craty is the institute's research director.  "Your
experiences are not unique," he talc me:

A number of physicians come to our institute, and over the years I've
heard other stories like this.  One cardiac surgeon told me that he has
observed this phenomenon, which includes personality changes and
cravings for new foods, and that it usually fades a few months after the
transplant.  It's not something surgeons want publicized, and they keep
it very quiet.

We know, from recent research, that the heart is a far

227 SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

more intelligent organ than we thought.  It now appears that the heart
has its own intrinsic nervous system, which Dr.  Andrew Armour, the
author of Neurocardioloy, calls "the little brain in the heart."

Another possible clue might come from a recent discovery in Boston.  In
1995, Dr.  Ming-He Huang, a Harvard Medical School researcher,
discovered a new type of cell in the heart.  These "intrinsic cardiac
adrenergic" (ICA) cells seem to synthesize and release catecholaminesa
group name for a bunch of different chemicals, like dopamine, which used
to be thought of as exclusive to the brain.  ICA

cells have magnetic properties, which suggests that the heart can
respond to and interact with magnetic fields.  A

similar type of magnetic cell can be found in the brain.

There may well be an electro-magnetic connection between the heart and
the brain, and the discovery of these new cells seems to support that
possibility.

Gary E.  Schwartz, Ph.D., is professor of psychology, neurology, and
psychiatry, and director of the Human Energy Systems Laboratory at the
University of Arizona.  Schwartz and his colleague, Dr.  Linda G.
Russek, have proposed a mathematical explanation for how everything in
nature, including all cellular and molecular systems, stores information
and energy.  Their theory, which they call the Systemic Memory
hypothesis, is too complex to summarize here even if I could.  It
provides a new explanation for, among other phenomena, memory from organ
transplants (cellular memory); homeopathy (memory in water); and
psychometry (memory in objects):

Systemic memory predicts that all transplant patients register stored
information and energy from the donor's tissues certainly unconsciously,
and sometimes consciously.  In our view, the problem of organ rejection
involves not only the rejection of the material of the cells, but also
the information and energy stored within the cells and molecules.

You received a large amount of core tissue the heart and the lungs,
which can store substantial information and energy.  You are also a
dancer, in touch with your body.  Finally, you're emotionally sensitive
and open to spiritual in formation.  You were primed, then, to resonate
with all of this information and energy, not only unconsciously, but
consciously as well.  It may well be that because you accented your
donor's information and energy, you were better able to accept and
incorporate the new heart and lungs.

This could explain why you've had so few problems with rejection over
the years, and why you're thriving today.

We have also published research showing that the heart and brain
communicate with each other both energetically and physiologically.
Specifically, the heart's electrocardiogram can be registered in our
brain waves.  Moreover, loving people can register; in their brain
waves, the electro cardiograms Mother people's hearts.  This research
provides a biophysical explanation for how a transplant recipient could
register the energy and information coming from her new heart and lungs.

People speak of learning things "by heart." Is this simply a misplaced
metaphor, or could there be some deeper significance to this phrase?  If
all cells store information and energy, and if the heart is especially
involved in this process because of the centrality of its location and
connections, then memories especially implicit memories may literally
involve the heart as well as the brain.  And if a heart is w.

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229 SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

transplanted, some aspects of the donor's history will potentially be
accessible to the recipient.

At this point in our discussion we leave the world of material reality
to consider several other ways of understanding what happened to me.

For James Van Praagh, a spiritual medium in Los Angeles, my experience
was caused by a spirit that hadn't yet moved on to its next home:

Donated organs often come from young people who were killed in car or
motorcycle accidents, and who died quickly.

Because their spirits often feel they haven't completed their time on
earth, they sometimes attach themselves to another person.  There may be
things that your donor hadn't completed in the physical world, which his
spirit still wanted to experience.  When this happens, the spirit is
caught between two worlds, like in the movie Ghost.  Sometimes this
leads to possession, and sometimes, as in your case, to influences.  If
this is what happened, I expect that Tim's spirit will eventually move
on when he realizes that he no longer needs to experience the physical
world.  Perhaps this has already happened.

Dreams are often communications with spirits.  The easiest way for
spirits to communicate with us is when we're not in our daytime,
rational minds.  When you had those dreams, Tim's spirit was working
with you.

Rupert Sheldrake, an English scientist, is the author of several
fascinating books, including Seven Experiments That Could change the
World and The Presence of the Past, which explores the idea of "morphic
resonance"the transmission of forms and behaviors through repetition in
time.  Sheldrake questions the accepted idea that memories are stored
inside our heads.  Our minds, he suggests, may be more like television
sets than video recorders; a television tunes in to transmissions, but
it doesn't store them.

In a letter commenting on my experience, Sheldrake notes that my story
reminds him of cases of reincarnation and reports of past lives.  He
then suggests two other possibilities:

I don't know what to make of the dreams and memories that Claire Sylvia
experienced as evidence of transmitted memory.  Even if she knew things
about the young man which she could not have known normally, there is
the possibility that she picked up this information telepathically from
people at the hospital.  This would not, however, explain her cravings
for beer and chicken nuggets.

If there is indeed a transmission of memory through the heart and lungs,
I would not attribute it to cellular memory.

However impressive this may sound, it has no basis in current science
and there is no known way in which cells could store psychological
memories.  The current materialistic theories of science would locate
these memories in the brain, not in the heart and lungs.

My own hypothesis, which is also beyond the limits of conventional
science, would perhaps permit a transfer of memories without requiring
it to be embedded inside the cells per se.  This explanation, which is
developed in detail in The Presence of the Past, allows for memory
transfer between individuals and between generations.  From this point
of view, the heart and lungs of the young man would be associated with
his morphic fields.  These could then be experi r

1


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2 3 1 SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

enced by Claire Sylvia.  But this transfer of memory need not depend on
physical traces within the cells.

Sheldrake's mention of reincarnation and past lives leads naturally to
the work of Brian Weiss, the author of Many Lives, Many Masters and Only
Love Is Real.  I was surprised, therefore, that Dr. Weiss's
interpretation of my experience did not draw upon his interest in past
lives, but referred instead to the practice of psychometry .
Psychometry, which is also known as object reading, is the ability of
some people to pick up mental images of an other person simply by
holding an object that belongs to them:

If it's possible to pick up impressions from holding some body's watch,
imagine what it must be like to receive organs that have been imbued for
years with another person's energy.  So it doesn't surprise me that you
can tap into this young man's emotions, preferences, and inclinations. I
see your experience as a psychic phenomenon having to do with energy
rather than, say, possession.  People have differing levels of psychic
awareness, and some organ recipients might well be sensitive to their
donor's energy.

It may also be no accident that you were the recipient who ended up with
these organs.  Perhaps there was some other connection between you and
Tim, either in the present or in the past, that has yet to be uncovered.

Larry Dossey, who offers several possible explanations, is a physician
of internal medicine and the author of, among other

books, Recovering the Soul and Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and
the Practice of Medicine.  He is also executive editor of the journal
Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.

The possibility that a living person might take on the personality
traits, behaviors, and even memories of a deceased individual is an
ancient concept.  This is the idea behind reincarnation, the belief that
there is a continuity between individuals living and dead.

Can donated organs mediate such a continuity?  And if so, how?  The
biologist Lyall Watson, in his book The Nature of Things: The Secret
Life of Inanimate Objects, proposes that physical items with which we
are in intimate contact can somehow take on our "emotional fingerprints"
and store our thoughts and feelings.  Later, under the right conditions,
they can come to life, as it were, and act in surprisingly life like
ways.  Watson has collected a vast array of examples suggesting such an
effect cars starting up by themselves and driving off, for example, and
objects such as rings, jewelry, and dolls that behave as if they were
alive.

If inanimate objects can store our feelings and thoughts, why not our
own body parts?  But how this might happen is not clear.

Far more likely, in my view, is that the consciousness of the donor is
fundamentally united with the consciousness of the recipient, which
enabled you to gain information about your donor.  Receiving the donor's
heart did not actually cause a mechanical transfer of experiences from
one person to another, but somehow intensified a mental connection that
was already present.

Surveys show that most people experience, at least occasionally,
phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.  And many
of us have experiences suggesting that our minds are indeed united. Some
of the strongest evidence for this comes from studies in distant healing
and

., ', r


2

'33 SEA KC H ING FOR ANSWERS

prayer.  In a 1988 experiment, Dr.  Randolph Byrd examined the effects
of intercessory prayer in about 400 heart patients in the coronary care
unit at San Francisco General Hospital.  Half of the patients received
prayer, while the other half did not.  This was a double-blind study,
meaning that no one involved in the experiment knew who was, or wasn't,
receiving prayer.  When the study was concluded, those patients who
received distant prayer did better, on average, than those who didn't.

We are gradually arriving at a picture of consciousness that I call
nonlocal mind what our ancestors called the Universal Mind, or the One
Mind.  In this view, the mind is not limited by time or space; it cannot
be localized or confined to individual brains and bodies, or even to the
present.  At some dimension of consciousness we are all united as a
single, seamless whole.  But most of us prefer to retain the idea that
we are solitary individuals, isolated physically and mentally from
everyone else.

Throughout history, however, people have discovered ways of realizing
their mental connections with others.

Sometimes physical objects serve this purpose, as in a ring that helps
two lovers realize their unity.  Both parties under stand that the ring
doesn't contain their actual memories and thoughts, and that it's a
symbol that triggers associations in the consciousness of the people
involved.  Could a part of the body, such as a donated heart or kidney,
function symbolically in a similar way?

Consider palm-read in$ The person whose palm is read is temporarily
"donating" his hand to the palm reader, the "recipient," who uses the
palm to make a mental connection with the individual who is seeking
information.  Some palm readers acknowledge that the palm is merely a
device, a go between that allows the palmist to enter that realm of
consciousness where information about another person can be accessed.  I
wonder: could the heart that you received have been functioning as a
palm, enabling you to focus attention in a dimension that would normally
be closed to you, and to gain information about your donor?

I also wonder: are other organ recipients having similar experiences?
Before it became acceptable to speak of them, we believed that
near-death experiences were rare.  But when people who underwent
resuscitation in modern hospitals were surveyed, it turned out that
these experiences were actually rather common.  Post-transplant
experiences such as yours may also be more widespread than we think.

I find it both exciting and gratifying that scientists and other
thinkers have so many ideas and explanations for the things that have
happened to me.  I am fascinated by the research of Can dace Pert, which
seems to be breaking down the old and often artificial walls between
body and mind.  I am amazed by the experiments of Clever Backster, which
appear to show that our cells are somehow linked together even when they
are physically separated.  Brian Weiss's analogy to psychometry strikes
me as a real possibility, while Paul Pearsall's speculations on the
possible effects of antirejection medication are fascinating.

To be sure, the interpretations offered in this chapter do not come out
of conventional science or medicine.  Many of the experts quoted here
operate- well outside the mainstream, and a few of their comments and
conjectures may strike readers as far-fetched or even absurd.  That's
because some of them probably are absurd.

But which ones?  When Harvey announced that the heart was r


235 SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

a pump, many of his colleagues thought that was absurd.  When you invite
intelligent, creative people to speculate about mysterious events that
are entirely new in human history, the ensuing conversation will cover a
wide spectrum of possibilities.  This

.  .  .  .

c scusson Is just beginning.

A Final Word MY JOURNEY continues, although in the telling it inevitably
becomes a slightly different story from the one I am living.  In the
reading, it will probably become slightly different again, in much the
same way a dancer brings her own experience and feelings to someone
else's choreography.

I sometimes wonder whether my entire earlier life was a preparation for
the transplant and its aftermath.  The family I was raised in, my
rebelliousness, my dancing, my illnesses, my immersion in alternative
medicine, my interest in dreams by the time Tim's spirit merged with
mine, I was already prepared and open to receive his strengthening
energy.  I have always believed in the power of the mind and the
emotions, and in realities that are not necessarily visible and
concrete.

Although Tim's life was cut short, his spirit, along with his organs,
were evidently meant to continue living.  I believe, as Tim's mother
does, that he led me to find his family, to be in touch with them again,
and perhaps to resolve, or complete, that which was unresolved while he
lived.  I feel this strongly in my heart.

Einstein once said that either nothing is a miracle, or every thing is.
To me, everything is.  And even now, the little things in life that we
usually take for granted still seem miraculous.  Each day, when I thank
God for being alive, my prayer washes away the problems, the stress, and
the trivia all around me, and refocuses me in that moment, in that
miracle.  I take a deep breath into my new lungs and recall a time when
even breathing was difficult.

These days, when I look in the mirror, I don't see old, tired, and blue.
I see gray hair, but instead of being distressed by it, I'm elated.  For
years, I didn't expect to live long enough ever to see signs of normal
aging.

The more time goes by, the more integrated my heart and lungs become.
I'm now at the point where I sometimes wonder:

Did these things really happen to me?  I feel so normal now.

A couple of years ago I had some surgery that wasn't related to my heart
or lungs.  Before the operation, a nurse was taking my medical history.

"Any operations?"

"Well, I had my tonsils out as a kid.  And a few years ago my spleen was
removed."

"Okay, anything else?"

"Not that I can think of," I told her.  "WellI did have a heart-lung
transplant in 1988."

"What?!" She tossed her pen in the air and dropped her head on the desk.
She must have thought I was crazy, but for a moment I had forgotten all
about the transplant.

But I am still aware of how different my life is.  These days, when I
hear music, I get excited about the next time I'll go dancing, because I
know there will be a next time.  When I was sick, music was a painful
reminder of my limitations.  Today, it's a cause for hope and gratitude.

i feel privileged to be alive.

Dear Reader, While I expect that stories like mine will become more
common, I can't know that for sure.  But one fact is beyond dispute: our
society is faced with a critical shortage of organ donors, a shortage
that results in many unnecessay deaths.

I was incredibly fortunate that my transplant took place so quickly.
Most candidates wait for months, or even years.And while they're
waiting, some of these people die.

Every April we observe National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week.
In the future, we may also see the introduction of a "Gift of
Lfe"postage stamp to increase awareness of organ and tissue donation.  *

Meanwhile, each of us can do a great deal to alleviate the suf feriny of
others.  The bumper sticker on my car reads,"Don't leave your organs to
heaven.  Heaven knows we need them here."

Please, please, consider signing an organ donor card.  And please make
your wishes known to your family.  Take it from methere is no greater
Oft.

* For more information about the "Gift of Life" stamp, contact Gary M.
Rouse, TRIO, Box 8786, Benton Harbor M149023.

J

$

Note Robert Bosnak and I are continuing our research into unusual
experiences of organ transplant recipients.  We would appreciate hearing
from people who are willing to share their stories.

Please write us at the Center for Psychology and Social Change, Box
398080, Cambridge MA 02139, or call (617) 354-2499.

(The Center is an affiliate of the Cambridge Hospital.)