Honoring the ultimate gift
I wake up every morning grateful — grateful to see the beauty of a new day
A BRONX woman who received the gift of sight brought tears to the eyes of hundreds Saturday when she delivered a soaring speech honoring the anonymous donor who changed her life.
“I wake up every morning grateful — grateful to see the beauty of a new day,” Noemi Castro-Feinstein said to a gathering of fellow transplant recipients, family members and donors at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
“I’m grateful because every time I open my eyes I know. I know that there is someone who I never met but loved me enough to leave the most precious, most invaluable gift, which is my sight. To say that that Samaritan was good is to kind of say that Mount Everest is a pretty big hill.”
Castro-Feinstein’s was one of the stirring stories recounted at Transplant Recipients International Organization’s 23rd annual “Remember and Rejoice” service.
More than 1,000 people packed into the famed cathedral in the largest gathering of organ donor families and transplant recipients in the nation.
Even the priest who presided over the service — Rev. Thomas Lynch of Our Lady of the Angels in the Bronx — had a connection to the cause.
Lynch donated a kidney to his brother.
Castro-Feinstein was just 19 when she lost her sight in 1993 after contracting keratoconus, an eye disease that caused her corneas to thin out and bulge like a cone.
The disease runs in the family. Castro-Feinstein’s father, Justo Castro, was among the first people to ever receive a cornea transplant.
But his body rejected it, leaving the now-87-year-old man completely blind.
His daughter had far better luck.
She received her first transplant in 1994 in a procedure that proved successful.
As is the case with many cornea recipients, the Pelham Gardens woman required additional transplants. She received them in 2004 and 2008.
“I’m having a love affair with my sight,” Castro-Feinstein said.
Castro-Feinstein, who works as a writer, she was especially grateful for the chance to see her daughter grow up.
Her youngest has also dealt with an extraordinary medical issue.
Anelise Noemi Feinstein was 11 in 2003 when she fell off a bike and down a cliff during a vacation in Virginia, leaving her with a severe brain injury.
Anelise remained on life support for a month. Doctors told her mother the girl suffered so much damage she’d likely spend the rest of her life speaking at a second-grade level. But Anelise defied the odds. “I was able to witness my daughter step out of a wheelchair and walk,” Castro-Feinstein said.
“I was able to witness my daughter get her bachelor’s degree from Marymount University in fine arts. And this May I get to see her receive her master’s degree in childhood education.”
Castro-Feinstein urged everyone to become donors.
“What I want you to know is that there is more to us than just this,” she said. We belong to something miraculous. And we are capable of the most extraordinary things, like donating organs, helping someone that you absolutely don't know. And that makes for an amazing life.”
Andy Brattain, 43, choked up as he recalled his agonizing 10-year-journey that ended this January with him receiving a liver transplant.
“I wish I could thank the person who saved my life,” the Manhattan man said.
A concert and event coordinator, he was diagnosed with a degenerative liver disease in 2008.
Over the years, his condition worsened.
“I was devastated by the fact that I needed to work and I wanted to work but it was getting harder and harder to work, so I spent 2017 concentrating on my health and trying to get better,” Brattain (photo) said.
“The only cure for that is a liver transplant. There were no family or close friends that matched me. So I was left to finding an anonymous donor.”
Brattain’s prayers were answered on Jan. 5.
He has no idea who his donor is but that doesn’t affect the amount of gratitude he has for his lifesaver.
“Luckily it happened before I got really really sick and I as able to recover from that,” Brattain said. “I’m three months out, and I feel great.”
Brattain joined in calling for anyone who can to sign up to be organ donors.
“You can literally do it sitting in bed watching Netflix,” Brattain said.
“It takes less than a minute. There's no fault for it. There's no reason not to. Get out there and become an organ donor.”