Selfless Mom Makes Gut-Wrenching Decision To Donate Toddler's Organs After Drowning
In the usual course of life, most of us will have to bury our parents. It’s only natural that the older proceed the younger in death.
Perhaps that’s why the passing of a child is such a terribly difficult thing to experience. It upends the common pattern.
What’s more, we ache when we see all of that vanished potential, when we watch what a young life could’ve become simply slip away. So it’s hard to find anything good in the death of a child.
But one Tennessee mother has done her best to ensure that something worthwhile comes out of her very personal tragedy. Like many parents, Amelia Wieand entrusted her children to a daycare center.
“One of the other parents was a police officer, and one was a physician,” Wieand told WVLT. “I would think if they entrusted their care with her, I definitely didn’t see any red flags with that.”
On June 20, though, the operator of that daycare center violated that trust. Somehow, she let Wieand’s 2-year-old twins Elijah and Elyssa make their way out to a pool on the property.
When the operator discovered them, they were submerged in the deep end. First responders whisked their tiny bodies to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital.
The twins’ father Enrique Orejuela recounted the phone call he’d received, saying, “All I heard was they’re in the pool. They’re in the pool, get here as soon as you can. …
“I begged (the doctor), I said, ‘Bring my daughter back, please,’ and he didn’t hesitate. He went back in there and worked.”
It wasn’t enough. Elyssa perished that very day.
Elijah, though, lingered. And while he lingered, the family kept hope alive, yet it came to heartbreak in the end.
The little boy finally succumbed on July 24. “It is with much heartbreak that I tell you that Elijah has gone to be with his sister,” Wieand wrote on Facebook.
“But to prevent another family from suffering this immeasurable pain, today Eli became a superhero. His organs are currently on their way to save several other children’s lives.”
The bereaved parents have a small measure of comfort not only in knowing that their loss led to another’s gain but also in remembering what made their children wonderful. Both children had strong personalities despite their young age.
“(Elyssa) would crawl into my jewelry box and take every piece of jewelry out and have bracelets up her arms,” Wieand recalled. “If you tried to give (Elijah) a girl sippy cup, he wasn’t having it.”
The community has rallied around the family, raising nearly $40,000 as of Saturday morning. “As a mother, you love your children, but when other people love your children, it makes you feel even better that it was more than just you, that the community loved them just as much,” Wieand said.
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