SPORTSDAY Columnist:
Kevin Sherrington is a sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News.
Gavora's life was a gift
In death, heroic Grapevine teen brings miracle to six lives
12:41 AM CST on Sunday, March 4, 2007
In the last weeks of his 17 short years, before he would die tragically from an injury in a Grapevine batting cage, Chris Gavora saved the lives of six people.
He saved them as surely as if he'd pulled them from a lake or a fire or the rubble of disaster.
A 54-year-old business owner and father of four kids.
A 27-year-old software engineer.
A 14-year-old boy.
A 29-year-old single mom.
A 10-year-old Arkansas boy.
Chris gave them, respectively, his pancreas, his liver, his kidneys, his heart.
We know a little about Chris from tributes and memorials rendered in the last week and at his funeral Saturday. In the seven months he'd lived in Colleyville after his family moved from Virginia, he left classmates memories of a normal kid distinguished by a set of dimples and a love of baseball.
But he was more than that. His parents, Bill and Jill Gavora, indicated as much in the statement they released last week.
"He loved life, and people," they wrote, "and cared deeply for the welfare of others."
Here's how you know: At a poignant and what proved to be prescient moment, perhaps moved by an organ donor awareness event at Grapevine High School three weeks ago, Chris told his parents he wanted to be a donor.
He never knew the people his gesture would save. Even now, the public doesn't know much about them. The recipients and their families have justifiable reasons for remaining anonymous. Hard enough just thinking someone else had to die in order for you to live, much less acknowledging it publicly.
But one family figured it could help the greater good to tell the story, and here it is.
Brad Walker, 35, received Chris' lungs. Diagnosed as an infant with cystic fibrosis, Walker had long ago outlived his doctors' prognosis. They told his parents he'd be lucky to see 10.
But he managed his illness and didn't show many outward symptoms. Made a life for himself. Grew up a rabid Oakland Raiders fan in Albuquerque, N.M.
Lives in Keller now. Loves cars, video games, his girlfriend and her daughter, and his black Lab, Sable.
But in the last two years, said his sister, Tracie Campbell, it was clear the disease had worn through his lungs.
His situation became critical in January. He checked into the hospital and didn't come out. Doctors called his prospects "day to day."
He all but died the third week of January. On the morning of Feb. 25, he turned for the worse again. Doctors told his family they were putting him on a ventilator, a desperate, perhaps even frivolous attempt to squeeze another day out of his fading life.
But only the day before, Chris Gavora had died from the head injuries sustained by a batted ball. Campbell, who'd traveled from Chicago to be with her mother and brother, had been following the story of the Grapevine baseball player like everyone else. When doctors told her a potential match was available with a 17-year-old male, she put the facts together even before officials told her.
And she was all but overwhelmed by the confluence of events.
"Had it not been for the timing and the match," Campbell said, "Brad would have died."
Walker has already had a second surgery since the transplant. He faces some difficulties, but doctors tell the family his prognosis is good.
Even still, he's not as fortunate as others. The 54-year-old diabetic who received Chris' pancreas has already gone home to his family.
All that doctors promise Walker is a chance to live another 10 years or so, and maybe by then they'll have another miracle for him.
Chris' miracle will do. Walker's sister and mother believe that merely accepting it is not enough. They want everyone to know their brother isn't anonymous. They want the public to see the face of organ donation, to understand what signing a card can mean for those waiting on the unthinkable.
Above all else, they want the Gavoras to know how grateful they are. So Campbell wrote them a letter.
My family is so sorry for the loss you suffered ... To me, your son Chris is a hero. He saved my brother's life.
We'll always feel a place for you and Chris in our hearts.
Nothing eases the pain from the loss of a child. Not the kindness of strangers, not platitudes, not even time.
But when there's no understanding why, you'd like to think maybe the Gavoras could find some small consolation in the six lives their son saved.
"I hope they will," Campbell said, softly. "I hope they will."