Jonathan’s adventure
For one woman’s son to live, mine had to die June Payne, 65, Newcastle-upon-tyne
Staring at his mate’s new mini motorbike, my lad Jonathan’s eyes lit up.
‘Can I have one?’ he gasped. ‘Can you heck?!’ I laughed. It was January 2006 and his friend had brought his bike round, showing it off.
A typical lad with a taste for adventure, Jonathan was mesmerised.
Still, I told him never to go on it.
‘They’re death traps,’ I warned him, seriously.
Jonathan was my youngest of four – my baby, even if he was 16!
Handsome and 5ft 11in tall, I knew he was almost a man.
But, to me, he was still my blond-haired little lad and always would be.
One evening that April, I was working as a tutor when Jonathan, by then 17, phoned.
‘I’m going out with friends,’ he said to me. ‘OK,’ I replied. ‘Enjoy yourself.’ But, 90 minutes later, his friend was ringing me back.
‘Jonathan’s been in an accident!’ he cried. ‘There’s an ambulance here.’
He told me where they were and, in utter panic, I jumped in the car and sped straight there.
When I arrived at the street minutes later, the police wouldn’t let me get close.
But an officer said Jonathan had been riding his friend’s motorbike when he’d been hit by a bus.
A motorbike! Hadn’t I warned him about those?
Horrified, I followed the ambulance to Newcastle General Hospital, where a doctor told me Jonathan had a head injury and broken wrist.
‘He’s on a ventilator because he can’t breathe for himself,’ he explained.
But I was hopeful. Jonathan was a strong, healthy young lad.
He’ll be OK, I thought, holding his hand when I could see him.
His dad Matthew, then 55, and older siblings Stacey, 22, and Michael, 19, arrived.
Jonathan was sent for scans but the results were horrific.
‘He’s got a massive brain injury,’ the doctor said. ‘We don’t expect him to pull through.’ I sat there, silent, in shock. Jonathan’s eldest sister Kerry, 24, arrived. We all sat with him, talked to him, held his hand.
We found out Jonathan had been riding his friend’s motorbike when the brakes failed and he’d gone into the path of a bus.
It was a tragic accident.
Jonathan was a good lad, a typical teenage boy tempted by his mate’s bike.
After five days, we were told Jonathan had suffered total brain damage.
He was gone.
Then the doctor sat me and Matthew down.
‘You’re going to ask about organ donation, aren’t you?’ I wept. He nodded. We agreed instantly – we knew that it was what Jonathan would’ve wanted.
Friends and family came to see him one last time.
Then it was my turn to say goodbye to my boy.
It was a day that should never have come.
My heart shattering, I kissed Jonathan for the last time, then left the room in tears.
I felt as if part of me had died, too. Some mornings, I couldn’t even face getting up.
We were told Jonathan’s organs were used for six successful transplants.
It was a comfort, but still the grief was overwhelming. His funeral passed in a haze. And, somehow, I started dragging myself out of bed and carrying on with life.
But I missed Jonathan every second – his sense of humour, his ability to make me smile.
On the first anniversary of
He was my blondhaired little lad – always would be
his death, the organ-transplant team forwarded me a letter.
Thank you for your son’s liver, it read.
It was from Dawn, the mum of a little boy called Dylan, 5, who’d been born with biliary atresia, a rare liver disease.
Dylan had spent most childhood life in hospital.
He needed the transplant to give him any chance of a good quality of life.
But now, thanks to the transplant he’s home and doing well, she wrote.
Dawn sent pictures of Dylan climbing Mount Snowdon.
He was a gorgeous little lad. Blond, like my Jonathan.
And it seemed that young Dylan shared my boy’s sense of adventure, too. Tears streamed down my face as I read the letter. It’s nice to know that Jonathan’s still helping people, I wrote back. And it really was. Organ-donation rules meant you couldn’t give your surname or address. But I gradually received letters from other recipients, too. A man in his 40s with Jonathan’s heart. Plus a Scottish gentleman with cystic fibrosis, who’d received his lungs. I heard from those with Jonathan’s kidneys and pancreas, too. Over the years, I often thought about them all, of Jonathan’s legacy living on. Then, in July 2014, eight years after Jonathan’s death, I got a message on Facebook. Does 16 April 2006 mean anything to you? it said. Goosebumps prickled. It was the day after Jonathan died, the day the transplants took place. The message was from someone called Dawn, and I quickly realised...
You’re Dylan’s mum,
I wrote back. We spent the whole night chatting. She told me Dylan was 14, doing well. She’d wanted to get in touch with me to let me know Dylan was thriving, so she’d found me on Facebook, after the letters we’d exchanged all those years ago. We kept in touch. And, a year later in August 2015, she brought Dylan and her husband Graham, then 57, to meet us.
As we hugged each other, we felt like family.
And, in a way, I suppose we were.
We talked about Jonathan, about Dylan, and what a fantastic lad he was.
Dylan was very shy, but he said ‘thank you’ to our family over and over again.
I was so emotional, hearing those words.
All too soon, they had to go but I knew for sure that we’d formed an unbreakable bond that day.
We kept in touch and, in July last year, I proudly watched Dylan compete in a 100m and 200m running race in the Transplant Games in Scotland.
I cheered him like he was one of my own.
I’ll never get over losing Jonathan but I’m so very grateful that we decided to donate his organs.
Jonathan died a hero, and gave Dylan a chance to thrive.
And I really couldn’t be prouder of them both.
As we hugged each other, we felt like family