"Earn This"

The elderly James Francis Ryan is kneeling in the Normandy American Cemetery before the cross marking the grave of Capt. John Miller, who a half century before led a rescue mission amidst the horrors of the battlefield to locate him and return him safely to his family because he was the lone surviving son among four brothers.

 

As his wife, children, and grandchildren watch from a respectful distance, Ryan, with tears in his eyes and emotion thick in his voice, says haltingly, “Every day, I think of what you said to me on the bridge. I’ve tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that at least in your eyes, I’ve earned what all of you have done for me.”

 

As he rises to his feet, his wife approaches and stands beside him.

 

“Tell me I’ve led a good life,” he says to her.

 

“What?” she replies incredulously as she looks at him, then at the grave marker.

 

“Tell me I’m a good man,” he says.

 

“You are,” she replies quietly after a pause, then steps back to rejoin the others, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

 

Then, Ryan turns and offers a sharp, heartfelt salute to Miller as the haunting strains of “Hymn to the Fallen” convey respect and reverence for the greatest of the Greatest Generation.

 

What was it that Miller (played by Tom Hanks) said to the young Ryan (Matt Damon) on the Ramelle Bridge that he carried with him all those years?

 

As Miller lay dying, he pulled Ryan toward him and said softly into his ear, “Earn this. Earn it.”

 

It was a challenge, a sacred challenge indeed, to live a life of meaning, gratitude, and humility and honor the courage, commitment, and sacrifice of those who had lived their lives to save his.

 

That poignant cinematic passage has always resonated with me, but never more so than in the aftermath of Nov. 14, 2012, when I began my new life as a survivor of both a rare, virulent autoimmune liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis and of transplant surgery which occurred as the sand slipped quickly through the hourglass.

 

My diagnosis had come three years earlier. Over time, my condition worsened slowly, then rapidly, and on Nov. 6, my doctor admitted me to the intensive care unit at the VCU Medical Center. Two days later, my family and I learned that without a donor liver, I had a week, at best, to live.

 

Competitive and stubborn, I fought with all the inner strength I could muster and came to understand that doing so but being at peace with the outcome, whatever that might be, were not mutually exclusive.  

 

The call came at 2 a.m. on the sixth day. My donor was an 84-year-old woman who had suffered a massive stroke in church in Eastern North Carolina and was rushed to the hospital, where she passed away two days later.

 

Even at her age, she was a registered donor. The medical assessment indicated that her liver was in pristine condition. In the darkness before the dawn, the “recovery team” from VCU flew to Wilmington on its mission of mercy. Even before the return flight touched down, orderlies wheeled me into operating room, for there was no time to spare. Eighteen hours after receiving the call, I emerged from surgery and, though heavily anesthetized and intubated, made my entrance into my new life.

 

How do you truly say thank you? To my family, who sustained me. To our friends, who supported us, encouraged us, and prayed for us? To my medical team who never gave up on me, even as the end grew near.

 

And to my donor, who trusted someone she would never know to care for a precious gift whose value is incalculable?

 

I don’t know her name. I probably never will.

 

This, though, I do know.

 

For as long as I live, I’ll do all within my power, gratefully and humbly, to show that I’m worthy of her trust.

 

By checking the box, you see, she said to me in so many words, “Earn this.”

 

I have. I am. I will. I promise.

~Weldon Bradshaw