GOODHEARTS

I’ve always loved variety, diversity. I suppose that helps to explain what led me to do my thesis on humour rather than on the more common topics in counselling, like grief and loss, or childhood trauma. I suppose it also helps to explain why I would choose to specialize in hope and apply this knowledge in a variety of ways, rather than specializing with a particular disorder or client group. Interesting people and projects come to a hope specialist. They just show up because they are searching for something extraordinary that might help them advance a dream they’ve been nurturing. What a gift they are to those of us who love variety and diversity.
Yesterday’s gift to me was Sylvio, a volunteer with the GoodHearts Mentoring Foundation. GoodHearts, based in Edmonton, provides organ recipients, patients on waiting lists, their families and caregivers with encouragement, support and guidance during each stage of the transplant journey. Our aim is that no individual — pre- or post-transplant — be left alone when needing answers, understanding and empathy from someone who has experienced this life-altering journey.”” The GoodHearts mentors are hoping that the hospitals will eventually provide their volunteer mentors with professional support for training and networking. While they wait for this dream to be realized, they are concentrating on doing their own networking and using whatever opportunities they can create for mentor training. Sylvio says, “We started out in the area of heart transplants, but other body parts got involved.” They found a manual in Georgia. They found that the Kidney Foundation had already done some work in mentoring.
Sylvio’s brief visit to Hope House has launched me on a course through uncharted territory that seems uncommonly familiar. This is precisely the kind of visit that started my involvement with teachers on disability, and Alzheimer family caregiver training. A similar conversation led me to join staff and spouses for hope conversations with groups with ALS patients. This one will take me to a small group workshop on a Saturday morning. It is already taking me back in my life, on a little memory journey.
We lived next door to the man who received Edmonton’s first heart transplant. His wife cared for our children while we worked. They called him Uncle. He gave them gifts. He played with them. He loved their golden hair. He helped build the fence between our two yards, a fence made intentionally short to facilitate over-the-fence visiting. The only Muslim weddings we have ever attended were the weddings of his daughters. When he died, his was our first Muslim funeral.
These days we don’t hear about heart transplants, but his, the first in Edmonton, was really big news more than twenty years ago. He and his wife were born in Pakistan. Their names told us they were foreigners. When his name was splashed all over the media, there were anonymous hate calls.
Too bad his name wasn’t published as Uncle.