Lauren Goldsmith-Molish

My greatest hope when I wrote The Marrow in Me was that someone would read it, be inspired by it and then go register as a potential bone marrow donor.  It’s happening.  Let me tell you about my friend Lauren Goldsmith-Molish.   We go way back–Elementary School, Junior High, etc.  Lauren bought the book right away, even before it was readily available.  She has been such a kind soul sharing with me in the effort to get the word out about a good read and a greater cause for humanity.  Lauren is one of those people who always delivers.  If she says she’s going to do something, she does without having to be reminded.  That’s not easy for anyone, let alone a married woman who is also a working mom. 

Like any good woman, Lauren shared what she was reading with her friends.  She sent me regular notes detailing where she was in the reading process and what her reaction was to the writing.  I made her cry she said, in a good way.  When a reader spells that out, it’s powerful stuff to an author.  Her best note was this, “I ordered a kit to register.”  

That’s the hope I had in the beginning of The Marrow in Me journey.  It’s all starting to come alive.  To get yourself in the bone marrow registry, take the first step online at www.bethematch.org  It’s easy to do, the NMDP will send a kit to your house at no cost to you and all you have to do is supply a cheek swab and return it.   Many cancer victims are desparately waiting to find a match, give the gift of life today.

Meredith Broussard, Author

I got an email from a long lost writing friend of mine Meredith Broussard.  Mere is something else.  She’s the editor of The Encyclopedia of Failed Exes and The Dictionary of Failed Relationships, which despite the negative connotations are not downers but rather witty reads.   Meredith shared with me an email about a gal pal she has in Southern California who’s struggling to find a bone marrow donor for her pre-leukemic condition.

Krissy Kobata with Alex Band Rocker Dude

So I tracked down Krissy who’s a cute 27-year-old bi-racial gal pal in Southern California to find out what’s up.   Here’s the deal, Krissy has been struggling to find a matching unrelated bone marrow donor for several months.  Hers is the face of a rather familiar struggle, people of mixed race looking for someone with the same racial medley as them.  Krissy’s dad is Japanese and her mom is white with roots in Scandanvia and Scotland.  Matches outside your racial orbit are rare but they’ve happened.  I wrote about one in my book The Marrow in Me.   Renee Adaniya, of Japanese Okinawan descent, turned up as a perfect match for a white military man named Butch “Duel” Lane in Tennessee.  Four years after covering the story of Renee on Hawaii TV, Renee called me with word that I was a bone marrow match for a 16-year-old boy with leukemia.  That’s me and Renee below.

I love to look for good stories because it’s what I do.  But Krissy’s story, my personal journey to becoming a bone marrow donor and the others I wrote about in The Marrow in Me all found me, allowing me to be who I am.   

I’d like for Krissy’s current situation to be different and I’m not just going to wish for it, I’m going to work on it.  I’m starting tonight on the tube.  I’m going on a program called Broadside with Jim Braude on New England Cable News.  I’m going to tell Jim and the 3.7 million households NECN reaches about Krissy and how they can register as potential bone marrow donors.  Folks who are Asian and ”Hapa” like Krissy are STRONGLY encouraged to register, but everyone else can too.  Remember what happened to Renee and Butch?  Who’s to say it couldn’t happen again? 

To get yourself into the registry for FREE–use the link: join.bethematch.org/swab4krissy, answer a short list of questions and be sure to use swab4krissy as the promotional code so you’re not charged for the marrow typing fee.  Marrow typing typically runs about 100 bucks.  But something else, if you have the dough make a donation while you’re there.   Do the same thing at www.a3mhope.org which is the funding source behind Krissy and other Asians seeking a match through The National Marrow Donor Program.  The funding source for this is good only through the end of the year.  It’s another way to give.

Forward this link along to everyone you know.  I have a good feeling things are going to work out for Krissy.  It’s just a gut thing, something I feel in my bones.  Krissy’s story is very much like the other stories I share in The Marrow in Me.  They just kind of fell in my lap.  And when that happens, good things usually follow.  I’m just the messenger.

Kevin with Latoyia Edwards, NECN promoting The Marrow in Me

Click on video link below to see Broadside with Jim Braude on NECN.  Discussion of The Marrow in Me, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Krissy Kobata.

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I’ve had a very emotional day and I’m not afraid to admit it.  Man tears are a weird thing.  You feel less manly when you cry, at least I do.  It carves at your toughness.  But I feel better afterward because of the release.  Maybe women and girls are on to something here.

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I was on New England Cable News being interviewed by Latoyia Edwards for my book,  The Marrow in Me.  She asked about the boy who received my marrow in a transplant.  It was a close call.  I thought she was going to lose it a couple of times.  I kinda sorta lost it for a moment myself.  But we made it through.

Chris Pablo & Me, Washington, September 2008

We were also talking in the interview extensively about my friend in Hawaii, Chris Pablo.  Chris found a life saving bone marrow match in a man who lost his legs in a Good Samaritan accident years earlier.  Chris is the life and soul behind The Marrow in Me.  Without Chris I never would have become a bone marrow donor and I most certainly would not have written a book.   

Chris beat leukemia but suffered a setback a few months back with another form of cancer.  He sent me a note about two weeks ago that he was in the hospital and having a hard time.   Sensing that he might be failing I e-mailed him the pdf file of my book because there were some things that I had written about him that I wanted him to see before it was too late.   The next day I got an email and a phone call from Chris.  ”You made me cry and I was up all night reading what you sent me.  Thank you for saying such nice things about my family Kevin,” he shared.

The book just came off the presses and I got my author copies of the book on Monday.  I sent out my very first bound copy to Chris because I wanted it in his hands.  Mail to Hawaii from the East Coast is notoriously slow.  This morning after that interview on TV, I came home to find a very sad email from Chris’s wife Sandy on my computer.   It was word that Chris had taken a dramatic turn for the worse and that family members were flying in from around the country to be by his side.

L to R. Samantha Walsh, Amanda Walsh, Zack Pablo, Sandy Pablo, Nate Pablo & Chris Pablo. The Pablos visited Boston in August 2009. We met them in the city for breakfast. It's the first and only time my daugthers met Chris.

The news about Chris crushed me, and selfishly I must admit I was sad that my dream to have the bound copy of the book in his hands before his passing appeared lost.  Then I got another e-mail from Sandy Pablo  minutes later while I was having my difficult moment.  “I was walking out the door to go the hospital and your book came in the mail.  I took it to Chris.  He’s kind of out of it now (illness & meds) but he knew what it was,” she wrote.

And with that I completely lost it.  How that book got there that fast I can only imagine.  I’m losing a friend as I write right now and it hurts.  But he gave me one last gift.  My dream of having him hold The Marrow in Me in his hands is complete.  God bless you Chris and your family.  Aloha.

Talk about coming full circle.  I used to deliver The Times Chronicle in my Meadowbrook, PA neighborhood.  I think I got like 30-cents a delivery back then.  Today a feature story about the boy who never missed your driveway–ok well maybe a couple of times.