On April 17, we received a call from Duke Hospital. Brenda had complained of a headache and had stopped communicating with the nurses so she had been given a CT scan. The results of the scan showed she had suffered a significant bleed on left side of her brain, called a hemorrhagic stroke. Duke graciously relaxed the COVID-19 visitation rules and granted Don, Kyle, Rachel and Kerry permission to visit Brenda at the hospital. When we arrived, we reviewed the results of a second CT scan with neurologists, which unfortunately showed the bleed had worsened and was now covering approximately 80% of her brain tissue, described by the doctors as a catastrophic brain injury. We spoke with the surgeon who had performed Brenda’s heart transplant, the neurology team, the ICU doctor, and her advanced heart failure doctor, and none of the doctors could explain what had caused the stroke. It was a sudden and unexpected complication that resulted in a traumatic injury to her brain. We were devastated to learn it was not possible for Brenda to recover from the damage caused to her brain and she would not survive the event. We spent the rest of the day in Brenda’s hospital room. We told her how much we loved her, shared stories, held her hand, and stroked her hair. We told her how proud we were of how hard she’d fought to stay with us and that we were in awe of her exceptional strength. We assured her we would take care of each other and told her it was time for her to rest. While she was not able to respond to us, we are confident she was with us and that she was happy we were all together. It was a brutal, beautiful, heart wrenching day and we feel so blessed to have had this time together. Throughout the day we talked about how grateful we were for the selfless gift Brenda’s heart donor had provided to our family. We knew it was Brenda’s wish to donate her organs, too. While it was almost impossible to fathom having her go through any other procedures after all she had endured throughout her life, we all felt strongly we needed to explore the possibilities for organ donation, so we met with Carolina Donor Services. We learned Brenda was eligible to donate her organs, but that we’d have to wait until the recipients could be matched, which would take a few days due to all of the required testing and coordination efforts. Although it was agonizing for us to prolong Brenda’s current situation any longer, we knew it would provide the best possible chance for recipients to be found, so we decided to give Carolina Donor Services the time they needed to find the matches. When we left the hospital on April 17, Brenda remained on the ventilator so her organs could be preserved for donation and the ICU team continued to care for Brenda, keeping her comfortable, managing her medications, and even playing her favorite hymns for her, which gave us great comfort. After what seemed like an eternity, we learned that an operating room time had been scheduled for Brenda for the evening of April 19. We gathered together and cried, told stories, and reminisced as we waited for her surgery to be completed. In the early hours of the morning on April 20, we learned Brenda’s final task on earth was done. The strongest, most loving, most compassionate and caring wife, mother, grandma, sister, friend and person we have ever known entered her heavenly home having donated the heart she had just received, as well as her kidneys and her liver. While it will take some time before we are able to learn more about the recipients of Brenda’s organs, we are so proud of the selfless choice she made and the lives that will be saved because of her gifts. We are thrilled for the families who will receive these gifts. We can imagine the joy they felt when they found out their loved ones had another chance at life because we, too, felt that joy just ten days ago. Brenda was a giving, loving, compassionate, selfless, exceptionally strong person to the very last moment. There are no words to express the depth of our sadness or to explain how much we miss having her in our lives. She loved all of you deeply and we are so appreciative of the support you’ve shown to our family. We cannot thank you enough for all of your kind words and encouraging notes – you have helped to sustain all of us through an extremely difficult period of our lives and for that we are forever grateful. We know that you all loved her and that you share the sadness we feel. We would appreciate your prayers and continued notes of encouragement. We also ask that you continue to send questions and requests through Kerry, Rachel, and Kyle, to enable Don to focus on his healing. We will provide further updates on our plans for a celebration of Brenda’s life as soon as we have settled on those details. Given the need for social distancing due to COVID-19, it is likely this event will not occur until later in 2020. Until then, please keep the recipients of Brenda’s gifts in your thoughts and prayers. Please keep the nurses, doctors, surgeons and other staff at Duke and all other medical facilities in your hearts as they continue to perform terribly difficult tasks under extremely complicated circumstances. Please take care of yourselves and of each other. If you’d like to share memories or pictures of Brenda, please send them to [email protected]. If you’d like to honor Brenda, please do so with a random act of kindness or donation to the charity of your choice. Thank you again for your love and support. All our love, The Guenther/Clifton/Cress Families