Community Magazine April 2013

30 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE M olly and Mitchell Bornstein didn’t believe it when they received the call with the good news. It didn’t – it couldn’t – feel real. It was too good to be true. Still, they wept over the prospect that their lives were about to change, and Mitchell’s, possibly saved. It was a surprising turnaround, considering how hope had been steadily vanishing. Mitchell would no longer be on dialysis, no longer be chained to a machine for hours at time, days at a time, unable to work and unable to move. A new kidney was about to be his, and all going well, a normal life lived. It was just around the corner. In the hospital, Mitchell and Molly met AJ Gindi, a community member, kidney donor, and, as Mitchell describes, his hero. The words that came out of Mitchell’s mouth were, “You saved my life!” Molly, with tears streaming down her face, embraced AJ’s wife, Joy, holding on for what seemed to be a half-hour, according to AJ. Despite such a grand, life-saving gesture, AJ appeared to Molly an ordinary gentleman just doing something extraordinary. “I saw a humble man, his face was honest, sincere,” recalled Molly. “We both saw the same thing in AJ,” Mitchell enthusiastically added. He’s such a special righteous man. It’s like he’s traveling on a different plane than the rest of us,” . For some people, the idea of saving a life means dashing in front of an oncoming car to push someone out of the way, administering CPR, or pulling a person from a swimming pool as he’s about to drown. But saving a life can also be a quiet, even routine, affair, one which occurs in a less superhero fashion, but is no less heroic. In fact, everyone has the potential to do something courageous and life-saving. We need to look no further than to AJ Gindi. The Making of a Hero The story began with a small, easy step – an annual swab test at a shul, meant to collect possible matches for a kidney donation, and a blood sample. What happened next was the first phase of a process that would change two lives forever. Renewal, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting people suffering from kidney disease, managed to track down AJ for a kidney donation match. “They asked if I would be willing to go through with it, and be willing to donate a kidney to someone that I had no idea who it was,” said AJ. “So I said, ‘Of course, if it’s an opportunity to help somebody, I would love to do it.’ The man is on dialysis, it’s not a way to live a life: suffering; going three, four times a week to dialysis, for three, four hours a day.” And after a day of testing – EKGs, CATscans, body scans, MRIs, and numerous blood tests – it was confirmed that AJ was a definite match. Once he heard how dire the situation was, he was all the more convinced that this was something he needed to do. Each year, eight percent of the patients on the national list die waiting for a kidney, US statistics say. Currently, the waiting list for a kidney – among people of all walks of life and all ages – is seven years. “I was physically fit myself to give it,” DAVE GORDON Living IS Giving To save a life is to save an entire nation, says the Talmud… and AJ Gindi has brought new life through giving. background pic which depends on the cover