It was an extraordinary moment.
A wedding is supposed to be all about the bride. You can excuse a young woman’s tug at selfishness when going through an event months in the planning and years in the dreaming.
But Lindsey Fuhrman’s wedding day wasn’t just about her.
It was also about a young woman from Texas whom she never even met, and that girl’s father, who lived a dream through Lindsey that day that fate had denied sharing with his own child.
I first met Lindsey nearly seven years ago, as a 17-year old teenager diagnosed with Restrictive Cardiomyopathy.
Her only hope would be a full heart transplant, so, like hundreds of others, she went on a list and the family began the wait.
The Fuhrmans aren’t prone to publicity, but in July 2001 agreed to a press conference at the request of the national organization that raises funds for transplant patients.
Lindsey’s bills, even if events went flawlessly, would top $250,000.
In the first in what would be an incredible set of circumstances, the Fuhrmans received the call that very night.
A perfect match had been found.
I talked to Lindsey in her hospital room at the Cleveland Clinic just six days after her operation, the color already returning to her face and the vigor to her demeanor. But her thoughts were with a family she didn’t even know, and the unknown tragedy that had given her a second chance.
Sixteen-year old Samantha Whitney, like many juniors, had just taken her senior class pictures that summer when her life was cut short in a brutal traffic accident.
Through the grief of losing their only child, the Whitneys were determined to give the death meaning by allowing Samantha’s organs to be harvested.
Sandy Whitney agreed to meet all of the recipients except one.
She hesitated meeting the girl from Erie who had received Samantha’s heart.
“You can’t see a liver or the other organs,” Sandy told me, “but you can hear a heart.”
They finally did meet, on the Tyra Banks show no less, and grew close to the point where years later Lindsey’s wedding just wouldn’t be complete without Samantha’s parents.
The ceremony included a powerful video of pictures of Samantha growing up, and Lindsey fulfilled an idea she first had in 2004, by getting her dad’s blessing to allow both he, and Al Whitney, to walk Lindsey down the aisle.
Weddings are supposed to be about the bride.
But every so often, in a moment both rare and magical, a wedding day can be about a whole lot more.
HEY! It’s unethical of me to use this space to promote my day job, but I’ll make a rare exception. If you would like to see the video stories of the Fuhrman wedding, go to www.wsee.tv but then you have to promise to come right back here and SHHH!
Don’t tell anyone..