Imperfect Heart But Perfect Love

Even flawless love can't mend an imperfect heart
by Bob Braun/The Star-Ledger
Thursday December 04, 2008, 9:00 PM
She stood over Billy's bed, holding his hand, rubbing his stomach. Billy said his stomach hurt bad.
"I know, Billy, I know," Gail Owens said to her son. She made her words soft and reassuring so he wouldn't be scared.
She was scared. For the week before he was admitted to the hospital, he had been sick. Billy didn't want to eat, not even his favorite food, cheeseburgers. He could not walk without becoming exhausted. His fingertips were blue.
Mitsu Yasukawa/The Star LedgerGail Owens, 32, of East Orange, becomes emotional during an interview as her son Billy Williams, then age 11, sits next with his doctor Rajiv Vermar at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in May 2007.
Doctors at the Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark put him into the pediatric intensive care unit. To stabilize his condition, Owens said to herself. Until he could come home again, where she would care for him the way she had done all his life, from the moment he was born 13 years ago with a congenital heart defect.
"Just try to relax, Billy," she said.
"But it hurts, Mommy."
"I know, Billy. But just close your eyes. Try to sleep."
Owens, who lived with her son Billy Williams in East Orange, had allowed herself hope recently. Now she was sorry she did.
Hope, she knew, was dangerous. For two years, she tried to live without it, but it was there -- especially on days when Billy played and went to school and hugged his mother like other boys did. Especially when she saw him growing to be a young man.
Two years ago around Thanksgiving, the report had come from Columbia Presbyterian hospital in New York. He was sent there to be evaluated for a heart transplant. The news was bad.
Billy could not have the heart he needed to survive.
Rajiv Verma, the head of pediatric cardiology at the Children's Hospital of New Jersey at Beth Israel, requested the evaluation. Without a transplant, Billy would die.
"I am glad I do not have to make those decisions," Verma said then, after the evaluation. "Those can be brutal decisions, made necessary by the shortage of transplant donors and the chances for survival."
Billy's chances, even with a transplant, were not good. His kidneys were weak. And, because of childhood meningitis, he was developmentally disabled.
That's a standard: Does a potential heart recipient have the mental capacity to take care of himself if necessary?
Owens sobbed when she learned the decision. She even demanded doctors take her heart for Billy. But she came to accept. She didn't have a choice. There wasn't any hope.
"I heard that, often, children need more than one transplant," she said. "He would have to go through it more than once. I didn't know if I wanted that for Billy."
But the medications Verma prescribed helped. He and other hospital staff members worked to get Billy back to school. Owens, who works at the East Orange municipal court, could go back to work.
After an article about Billy appeared here 18 months ago, many readers helped Owens and Billy. The staff at East Orange General Hospital took them out to dinner for Mother's Day. The Make-a-Wish Foundation sent them to Disney World.
Billy seemed stronger. Last summer, Gail put Billy in the car and they drove to Milwaukee to spend weeks with her mother, Billy's grandmother.
"That was so much fun," Owens said.
She allowed hope back into her life because it felt so good.
"I let myself think about how, maybe, Billy could become a teenager and have a girlfriend. Maybe grow up and get married."
Owens knew what the doctors said. But, there were times when Billy would just stop what he was doing and come to her while she sat at the kitchen table, and hug her and say, "I love you, Mommy," and she would say back, "I love you, Billy."
At times like that, Gail Owens, who is only 32, couldn't help but hope.
Just before Thanksgiving, Billy grew weaker. She took him to the hospital where she stood by his bed and tried to ease his pain and his fear by holding his hand and rubbing his stomach.
"Please try to relax, Billy," she said, watching as pain gripped her boy.
Then he did relax. In an instant, all the pain was gone. Finally and forever. She looked at the little boy she had helped become a young man despite the odds.
The pain, but not the hope, was gone. She told her son, "I'll see you again, Billy. I promise."

This story should help us all remember how important and short life is, we should also pray for Gwen Owens. And keep encouraged knowing that the Bible says: Death is gain.....