What goes around, comes around.

When Hurricane Harvey hit the southern United States in 2017, it brought bad news to the area.  It caused catastrophic flooding and many deaths.   It tied with 2005‘s Hurricane Katrina as the costliest tropical cyclone on record, inflicting $125 billion in damage, primarily from catastrophic rainfall-triggered flooding in the Houston metropolitan area and Southeast Texas.  In a four-day period, many areas received more than 40 inches of rain.   The rain inundated hundreds of thousands of homes and displaced over 30,000 people.  More than 17,000 had to be rescued.

Amid the devastation, there were a few bright spots.  One of those was Danielle Palmer.

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Danielle lives with her husband, Brett, and their three sons: Bowen, Judson, and Truett, in the small town of Owensville, Missouri (population 2,620), about 50 miles southeast of Jefferson City. 

When Truett, their youngest, was born, doctors quickly discovered he had a congenital heart defect along with other underlying anomalies.  The couple was horrified to find that Truett would need a heart transplant if he was to have any chance to survive childhood.

Like many moms, Danielle believes that breastfeeding is one of the best things she could do for her babies.  When she learned that Truett would have to be kept on a feeding tube and unable to nurse for much of his young life, Danielle didn’t want the milk she was producing to go to waste, so she began to package it and store it in a freezer for the time her son would be able to use it.

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When Hurricane Harvey struck, the Palmers saw the news stories about the devastation and the tens-of-thousands of people who were suddenly homeless.  They felt deeply for the people but, with their whole lives revolving around raising three boys, including Truett’s special requirements, there just wasn’t much they could do.

 “I can’t imagine being in a situation where you’re losing everything and just the fear of all of that,” said Palmer in a television interview. “All I could do was sit and pray for the moms and dads and kids.  Beauty can come from this.  It won’t be bad forever.”

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One day Danielle was talking to Truett’s speech therapist, Nicole Edwin.  Nicole works with Guiding Star Missouri, a women’s health organization and told Danielle about it. 

Guiding Star was trying to help women affected by Harvey.  They were accepting donations which they would then make available to women in need.  Among the items the organization was accepting were breast pumps and other things needed by parents…like breast milk.

You see, because of the stress of going through the hurricane and its aftermath, some nursing mothers found their natural supply affected.  In an interview, Danielle said, “With breast feeding, stress plays a big role in your supply.  If you become stressed, your supply will drop on top of not having access to your pump.”

Now Danielle saw her opportunity to help.  She packed an ice chest with her frozen breast milk…all of it.  “We gave 1,040 ounces and we figured that up, if a normal baby gets three ounces, that’s 346 feedings,” Palmer said.

Wow.

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Danielle’s donation went to women in the Houston area and played an important role in helping untold numbers of women and infants “weather the storm,” so to speak.  So her selflessness and compassion helped a lot of people, but it did nothing to help the Palmers’ own worsening problem.

Truett was losing his battle against his heart disease.  The miracle of modern medicine had kept him alive and provided some hope now and then, but time was running out.

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Danielle grew up in the farming community of Risco, Missouri.  As she grew, she made friends with the McCord family.  She fell in love with them and they with her, so much so that, to this day, Rick and Laurie McCord think of her as their daughter.  This, obviously, made Danielle’s kids their grandsons.

The McCords moved out of Risco a while back and moved to a place a stone’s throw from ours.  The couple walks together for exercise frequently so Annie and I introduced ourselves one day as they passed our house.  One of the many things we discussed during that first meeting was little Truett.  We expressed our sympathy and told them we would include them all in our prayers.

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Fast forward a few months and one evening Annie and I were sitting on our back deck watching the fire I’d built in our firepit and waiting for the evening to bring our resident deer out.  I noticed Rick and Laurie walking by and hollered an invitation for them to come visit.  They did.

In the course of the visit we talked about the upcoming deer season and, as grandparents, it was inevitable that we would, sooner or later, have to talk about grandkids.

“How’s Truett doing?” I asked.

The smile on both their faces went from happy and smiling to something a little more serious.  Rick told us that little Truett wasn’t doing so well.  His heart was failing and the parents, Danielle and Brett, had been told that, unless he got a heart transplant pretty soon, they wouldn’t have their little Truett much longer.

My heart sank.

My prayers increased.

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Just recently, on opening day of the Missouri firearms deer season, Rick called me to check how opening morning had gone.  I told him that two of my sons were visiting and asked if he’d like to come over to meet them.

He quickly accepted.

After I’d introduced him to my boys and we swapped a few words, he asked, “Have you heard the news?”

My heart dropped as I immediately thought of Truett. 

“No, I haven’t,” I said.

“Truett got a heart.”

My own heart swelled as I let the fact sink in.

Rick filled in the details and recommended that I check out his and Danielle’s Facebook pages for more information.

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As I sat down last night to begin writing this post, I read both Facebook pages.  I scrolled down to read some of Danielle’s earlier entries and felt the pain of a mother who watched her little man gradually go from an active toddler to a weak, sick child.  In her photos I could see Truett’s smiling face and feel the pain of a parent who loves a child so deeply, so completely; a parent who wants to make every moment with that child a memory to last a lifetime; a parent who concentrates on making every second of that child’s life a happy one; a parent who knows that those seconds are rapidly ticking away.

There was the entry where Danielle announced that a donor heart had been found and that Truett was scheduled for surgery.  Another that said the operation had been a success.

Then there was Danielle’s most recent entry.

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“WELL……

“I can’t believe I’m posting this, buuuut….

“We are finally HOME! All 5 of us. Seems surreal. I’m still pinching myself. As I lay here (in my OWN bed) after tucking in ALL my boys I am brought to tears. I’m beyond thankful for God allowing Truett to make it this far. But as happy as I am, after spending 5 months in cardiac units, I’m reminded that not every parent that I became close to during this stay got to bring their child home. 6 families loss their children while we were inpatient. All because of something called a CHD. This journey is not fair nor is it easy. But it has taught me so much. Life as I knew it is not the same. I can see things so differently now. I will spare you all the details, but for now I am going to go talk with Jesus and thank Him for the work He has done in Truett, me and my families life. But most importantly I will pray that He will hold those families so much tighter and bring each one comfort.”

I was overwhelmed that, at this moment when things are finally looking up for her family, she is still thinking of others.

God bless her.  I can’t wait to meet her, Truett, and the whole Palmer gang.

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I could leave it there, but I want to ask you one, simple thing.  Pull out your wallet and get your drivers license.  Turn it over on the back.  See the organ donor block?  When you pass away you won’t need any part of your earthly body.  But somebody else does.  Just think.  Your passing could give somebody else life.  To sign or not is up to you. 

It was an easy decision for me.

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