Canonsburg couple meet son’s organ recipient
Paul and Laura Gillum had been thinking about this moment for a year and eight months.
On April 27, the Canonsburg couple met the 2-year-old South Carolina boy who is alive because of the heart he received from the Gillums’ son, Dean, who died Aug. 2, 2015, after he fell into the family’s above-ground swimming pool.
“It was kind of surreal because it seemed like we had always known them, that we had always been connected in some way,” said Laura Gillum about the meeting with recipient Lennon Cureton and his parents, Allen and Jessica. “We were so happy that Lennon is so healthy. He’s such a little spitfire, and he’s so funny, and he loves running around. He’s all the things I know Dean would have been if he were alive. We’re so grateful that Dean was able to do this for someone else.”
The Gillums never hesitated to donate Dean’s organs.
Lennon, who was 6 months old when he underwent the heart transplant Aug. 8, 2015, was born with dilated cardiomyopathy.
His heart was functioning at just 13 percent, and he was in end-stage heart failure.
Dean’s kidneys went to a 66-year-old nurse in Pittsburgh, and his liver was donated to a 1-year-old Florida boy.
From the moment they said goodbye to their son and gave doctors permission to take Dean’s organs, the Gillums wanted to meet the recipients
In December 2015, Laura wrote letters to all three organ recipients.
The Gillums were thrilled when, five months after Dean’s death, a letter forwarded through CORE, a donor advocacy group, arrived from the mother of a child named Lennon.
“We are so incredibly thankful that in the darkest moments of your lives you chose life for our sweet Lennon,” Jessica Cureton wrote. “Dean’s heart has changed our lives forever. … I promise, with all that I have, that Dean’s heart will feel nothing but love, and will be cared for, for as long as it beats inside of our sweet boy.”
In the letter, Jessica Cureton mentioned a Facebook page she started to update family and friends about Lennon’s condition.
Laura conducted a Facebook search and ran across the page, and Paul reached out to Jessica.
The families kept in touch regularly, exchanging photos and videos, talking and texting, but had not met in person.
The Gillums and Curetons traveled to Los Angeles, where their first meeting took place on “The Real,” a syndicated talk show.
“We didn’t know what to expect. We had met a lot of donor and recipient families, and every situation was different,” said Laura. “We weren’t nervous, we weren’t scared. We said this is for Dean, and to advocate for organ donation. There are so many people who won’t have to go through what we went through if they get an organ.”
For Jessica Cureton, meeting the Gillums was a chance to say thank you in person.
“It was really awesome to finally see the peole who helpled save our child. I thanked them again; I’ve thanked them a million times. I don’t think I can ever thank them enough,” said Cureton. “He’s doing wonderfully now, but without them, Lennon wouldn’t be here. They’re such open and warm and welcoming people.”
After they taped the show, the Gillums, the Curetons and Lennon’s extended family – aunts, uncles and Lennon’s brother, Liam – spent time together at In-N-Out Burger and in the Curetons’ hotel room, and Laura was delighted that Lennon asked her to carry him around the whole day.
“He absolutely loved her,” said Jessica laughing. “He diddn’t want her to put him down.”
The families plan to meet once a year.
Meeting Lennon was “a full-circle moment” for the Gillums.
“Even if a recipient is hesitant about meeting a donor family, do it. For the donor family, it’s so fulfilling because you grieve the death of your child, but you get to see what your child has done. You get to see the lives that your loved one has changed in their death,” Laura said.
The Gillums, Laura said, are trying to turn a tragedy into a positive situation.
After Dean died, Laura and Paul founded Breathing for Burrito, a nonprofit organization that provides free cardiopulmonary resuscitation classes. The classes are held on the first Saturday of every month and the following Thursday at Armory Youth Center in Canonsburg.
And, they advocate organ donation.
“Dean was going to be gone whether we donated his organs or not. Dean wasn’t going to be here anymore,” said Laura. “We’re doing what Dean would want us to do. To see what he’s done with his death, it amazes me every day.”