Eye Tissue Donor’s Son Tells Tragic Story That Ends With a Good Thing.

It’s May 14, 2018, and my mom is dead.

She’s been dead for an hour, maybe two... I don’t know exactly how long it’s been. We’ve just returned from the hospital to my parents’ house. I guess now it’s not “my parents’ house” anymore — just “Dad’s house.” Dad is with my sister and my wife out in the living room. I’m in my childhood bedroom, alone, with the door closed, about to return a call from Rocky Mountain Lions Eye Bank (RMLEB).

They had called while we were on our way home from the hospital, and I had asked if it would be okay to call back in 15 or 20 minutes. Dad is basically out of his mind with shock and grief, and I didn’t want to have to deal with him, like freaking out or something while we’re all in the car and I’m answering questions over the phone about Mom’s medical history.

Dad should have been the one to take the call — he’s her next of kin and the executor of her estate and all that. But Dad has made it clear that he doesn’t intend to assume any of the responsibility for anything, that he basically doesn’t want to do anything or to deal with anything ever again, and there are literally a kajillion things that need to be done and dealt with.


Picture of Matt and his mom, Susan

Eye Tissue Recovery is About Timing  

So where to start? At the hospital, the staff had already asked us which funeral home we wanted mom’s body to be sent to. Eventually, that is. I know from watching Crossing Jordan that an autopsy will be required. Now I’m learning that the eye, organ, and tissue donation piece comes even before that.

Anyway, it seems like the clock is ticking, and I had better call these people back [RMLEB]. Later on, I will learn it’s not as super-urgent as you might think. The ideal time frame for eye tissue recovery is within 8 hours of cardiac death, but in some special cases, it can be recovered even later. And, for the record, recovery is handled with the utmost care and respect for the recently departed.

“Departed” is all that matters to me in this moment, though. Mom is gone. The body she left behind? That isn’t her. But, you know, I get it if other people don’t feel that way.

Medical History Important to Eye Tissue Safety

I make the call. The phone interview with RMLEB doesn’t take very long. There are a few questions about mom’s life that I don’t know the answers to. I mean, I know about her travel history, but some of the questions about her sexual history are secrets I guess now she’ll never have to reveal. I doubt Dad would have answered those questions honestly. They [RMLEB] take the time and care to explain why these questions are important to ensure the safety of mom’s eye tissue for the possible recipient.

I tell the person on the other end of the line I’m surprised to learn that mom’s eye tissue might still be donatable, considering the cause of her death was that all her organs were failing. They were failing because, three days and three nights previous, she had attempted suicide by deliberately poisoning herself with simultaneous lethal doses of carbon monoxide, oxycodone, acetaminophen, and a bottle of red wine to wash it all down.

“Attempted”? I guess now we can say she died by suicide. To me, it was the most selfish thing she ever did. 

Registering as Eye Donor Leads to Legacy of Sight

That single deed, however, was not an accurate reflection of the rest of the life she led. Throughout her career as a licensed professional counselor, and as the founder and president of a philanthropic charity organization (Children Without Shoes International), she had dedicated her time and energy to her own personal ministry of easing the suffering of others and helping people in need.


Picture of Susan with a group of people holding shoes

Without getting into the details, while we know why she died by suicide, we are all nevertheless surprised and shocked that she died in such a manner. It was just so out of character for her. If anyone were aware of the full impact of a suicide, she must have been. I mean, she had spent her career counseling people who were suicidal, people who had been the victims of a loved one’s suicide... Wait, maybe I’m supposed to say “survivor” instead of “victim.” I’m still not sure how I feel about that — suicide is not a victimless crime.

She raised me, so of course some of her sense of wanting to help people rubbed off on me. And although she lived, like others of her generation, in denial and terror of aging, mortality, and death, she usually came around sooner or later to meeting those fears with courage.

I can remember discussions we’d had over the years about the virtues of registering as an eye, organ, and tissue donor, beliefs that I hold dear as my own, but which could probably be more accurately ascribed to her. She came from a clinical background, after all. It wasn’t complicated: it would simply be both wasteful and cruel to deny help to people who need help.

Later on, I will learn that two different people got the gift of sight from mom’s corneas.

But back to that day, that phone call... the person on the other end of the line at RMLEB thanks me, and offers their condolences. I thank them back, appreciating how painful and difficult these calls must be, expressing my gratitude for helping to accomplish something that I am certain my mom, had she still been alive and well and in her right mind, would have wanted. 

I hang up, and yes, I do exit my childhood bedroom feeling a little lighter. I go out to be with my family feeling just a little bit better, like, at least here’s one good thing, one objectively good thing that we can look at, at this awful time of our lives, on this awful day, and say, at least this is one good thing. In fact, it’s a really good thing! And on this day, at this lowest-of-the-low moment, I wonder if I’ve ever really needed a truly good thing quite so much.