Two families are bonded because of one son's selfless gift as an organ donor and another's tireless work to make sure that gift is not wasted.
No matter how you look at it, the fact of the matter is, when 22-year-old George Becker died suddenly last year, 15-year-old Alfonso Garcia was given a second chance at life, purely because of an all-too-often overlooked box on a driver’s license form.
Becker, who was born in Roseville, was an organ donor and due to a rare genetic disease, Garcia was in desperate need of a liver within 48 hours or else he’d die.
“We’d talked about it a little bit growing up,” said Becker’s mother, Loomis resident Connie Mays. “It’s not exactly the kind of conversation you wantto have with your kids, but George had made his decision to be an organ donor very clear.”
In the hospital, shortly after Becker’s passing, the family got word that a few hours away, in Pinole, Garcia was facing a certain death unless Becker’s liver could be transplanted.
“It doesn’t answer the question of why this happened to him, or what the meaning of it all is, but it made it feel like at least this way his death wouldn’t be in vain,” said Becker’s father, Rick.
The family respected Becker’s wishes, and his liver — as well as his kidneys and pancreas — were all transplanted to recipients in need.
In the months following Becker’s death, Mays received cards from their representative at the Donate Life California Organ Donor Registry informing her that all of the transplants were successful and that the recipients were healing well.
“I often thought of the Garcia family and wondered how (Alfonso) was doing but I had no way of getting in touch with them,” Mays said.
A glimmer of hope came by way of a letter Garcia wrote to the Becker family thanking them for their son’s selfless gift which expressed his desire to meet the family.
“It’s hard to explain, but it was weird having this selfless gift, and not having the opportunity to really thank them,” Garcia said. “That was hard, so I really wanted to meet them and thank them in person.”
Garcia said in the months after his transplant, the Becker family and their great loss was never far from his mind. What weighed heaviest, he said, was how Becker’s mother was coping.
“I saw what my own family went through with me and I just thought it must be horrible what they are going through, that they lost their son,” Garcia said.
Finally, after months of grieving and trying to piece their lives back together without George, the Becker family got the opportunity they had been waiting for.
A friend of Mays had attended a Giants game at which a young man who had recently undergone a liver transplant was throwing the first pitch.
“She told me everything she’d learned from the announcement at the game and the details and how they matched up with George’s story was unreal,” Mays said.
A quick Google search of Garcia’s name returned a handful of articles, including a Pinole Patch story.
Eager to finally contact the Garcia family, Mays sent the articles on to George’s father, Rick, and half-sister, Richelle.
“I sent an e-mail to the reporter at the Pinole Patch and then looked (Garcia) up on Facebook,” Richelle said.
Within minutes, Richelle and Garcia were talking on the phone and just days later, the Becker family was en route to the Garcia house to finally meet after a year and a half of wondering and waiting.
Garcia, now an Ambassador for the California Transplant Donor Network, was anxious to meet the family and hear stories of the man who had so selflessly changed his life.
“I had wanted to go to Westpoint, serve in the military and maybe box when I was older,” Garcia said. “Now, after all I’ve been through, I feel like I can serve a bigger purpose, like George’s legacy and what he did can live on through me, because I’m not the message, (George) is.”
The Garcia and Becker family have forged a strong bond and have promised to keep in touch, the Garcia’s going so far as to include a photo of George on their mantle alongside their own family photos. The two families have already planned to attend next month’s 2011 Donate Life California Walk, and have tentative plans for a joint family reunion sometime in the future.
Rick described meeting Alfonso and the Garcia family as shining a light on this situation that has helped him to finally move past that terrible day in the hospital when his son died, “I have finally been able to see the good in this and we are so proud of Alfonso and what he is doing as an advocate for organ donation,” Rick said.
“(George’s) life was a gift, from the day he was born to the moment he was no longer with us,” Mays said. “And his gift lives on in this young man and in the lives that he’s touching and continues to touch.”
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