Journey of loss for one family and the gift of life for another
Slouched in an office chair in a subdued hotel conference room Thursday, John Bond waited to thank a stranger for saving his life.
He’d received a kidney transplant from Olga Kemaeva’s husband after the Russian man was killed while visiting Pittsburgh. Waiting for her to arrive, he felt nervous, really nervous.
“What do you say to someone?” he wondered aloud. “They lost a husband, the kids lost a father … I can’t say much more than thank you.”
Both families had come so far and through so much to end up in Pittsburgh, in this beige conference room on a snowy gray day.
Unexpected phone calls had yanked both Mr. Bond and Ms. Kemaeva from their lives. Ms. Kemaeva’s call came first. Her husband, Anton Kemaev, 35, was shot in the head at 6 p.m. Dec. 19 while riding in the front passenger seat of a car on Second Avenue in South Oakland. His friend, who was driving, was not hurt.
Police said neither man was the shooter’s intended target. The
case is unsolved; investigators haven’t said who was shooting or why and haven’t released any suspect descriptions.
After he was shot, Mr. Kemaev hung on for nine days.
His friend, Vladimir Shlyakhtin, of Greenfield, is the one who made the call to Russia, where Ms. Kemaeva and her three children had remained at home while Mr. Kemaev traveled.
Ms. Kemaeva, who does not speak English, immediately began the process to get to Pittsburgh, though she’d never traveled internationally before. Her friends drove her to the local airport in Novosibirsk, where she lives, and she flew to Moscow.
It took four days to get an emergency visa.
Another plane ride to New York City, a transfer and a short flight to Pittsburgh followed.
Mr. Shlyakhtin met Ms. Kemaeva at the airport at nearly midnight on Dec. 27.
The next morning they went to the hospital and Ms. Kemaeva made the decision to take her husband, who had no brain activity, off life support. She filled out the paperwork for him to become an organ donor. Hedied at 1:27 p.m. Dec. 28. And then Mr. Bond got his unexpected call.
About 8 p.m. local time in Apple Valley, Minn., on Dec. 29, he learned that a kidney was available for him.
The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs sent a taxi to his home; he and his wife had 10 minutes to pack and were loaded onto a chartered flight in Eden Prairie, Minn., a half-hour later.
An ambulance met them on the tarmac in Pittsburgh and whisked them to a VA facility. Hours later, Mr. Bond, 35, was in surgery.
At the hotel Thursday, the Army National Guard veteran moved tenderly, at times resting a hand on his right side, over the transplant site. He was released from the hospital just a couple hours before the meeting with Ms. Kemaeva, arranged after he and his family saw media reports on Mr. Kemaev’s death and realized the 35year-old Russian was likely their kidney donor.
When Ms. Kemaeva walked in, Mr. Bond met her halfway across the room with a hug.
He thanked her, started to say more, then remembered she didn’t speak English. They waited for Mr. Shlyakhtin to translate. Slowly, over the next 90 minutes, with many pauses and hugs and some tears, they said what they needed to say to each other.
Mr. Bond and his wife, Erin, told Ms. Kemaeva how sorry they were about Anton and how thankful they were for the organ donation. Ms. Kemaeva told them she was glad Mr. Bond had gotten the kidney, that it was what her husband would have wanted.
“You’re always welcome in our home any time if you ever decide to come back here,” Ms. Bond told Ms. Kemaeva.
They hugged when words failed, and as the meeting wound down, Mr. Bond looked Ms. Kemaeva in the eyes.
“You saved my life,” he said. “Thank you.”