Paul Springer tucked the letter into his pocket and carried it to dinner.
Paul and his wife, Trio, had invited another couple from church to Tico’s that Thursday in May.
They didn’t know Jacob and Sara Friest very well.
But they knew Jacob was sick.
They knew the couple had four kids, like they did. They knew Jacob had been missing church.
And two months earlier, they’ve learned something else: Jacob was sicker than they thought and he needed a new liver to save his life.
So now here they were, sitting in a booth eating Mexican food.
They’d lingered over dinner talking about their families and their lives.
Jacob, the scientist, and Sara, the high school librarian, with three sons and a daughter. Paul, the professor and University of Nebraska-Lincoln administrator, and Trio, the school nurse, with a four-pack of sons.
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They talked about Jacob’s liver disease, too.
Jacob and Sara were private about his illness, but when things got dire, Sara posted a plea on Facebook: If you’ve ever wanted to save a life, now’s your chance!
Paul and Trio saw the post.
They both filled out the form that night, offering themselves as donors.
Paul was the first person the University of Nebraska Medical Center reached out to, and after many tests and scans, it turned out he was a perfect match for Jacob.
Jacob and Sara didn’t know anything about that.
Until May 6.
Paul pulled the folded letter from his shirt pocket and handed it over.
Jacob and Sara smooshed together in the booth to read it.
Jacob read faster than Sara, but she cried first.
The typed words filled the whole page.
Paul wrote about watching their family from afar, not really knowing their struggles, but admiring their kindness to others.
He wrote about seeing the post that described Jacob’s diagnosis and what he’d thought when he read it: If I was in Jacob’s shoes, what would I hope someone would do for me?
He wrote about the testing and the match.
“I am humbled to be entering these waters with you,†he wrote. “The Lord has His hand in our lives and I know we have been prepared for this journey with you.â€
He signed it: “With love, your Brother.â€
* * *
The transplant was June 3.
Two months later, Sara and Jacob and Trio and Paul are smooshed together on the couch at the Springers' place in south Lincoln.
All the kids are off at the pool.
The two couples live a few miles apart. They text each other every day. If a few days pass without an in-person visit, they get lonely.
They are joking about Paul’s perfect liver, telling the story of how 60% of it is now in Jacob’s body.
That dinner was the start.
The weeks that followed were a flurry.
Each man had a transplant team.
The operation wouldn’t be an easy one.
“It’s one of the most dangerous and complicated surgeries that they do,†Jacob says.
Paul was 45 and had never had surgery.
But the Springers had faith. And they loved and trusted their transplant surgeon, Wendy Grant.
“She told us, ‘I will not do anything that puts you at risk,’†Paul said.
Wendy was also the person who convinced them to tell Jacob that Paul was the donor.
“I had decided not to tell him,†Paul said. “I didn’t want them to feel like they owed us anything.â€
He told the doctor his decision.
She gave him a look.
A look that said: That’s a stupid reason.
“She said it could be a great opportunity to bring you and Jacob and your families together.â€
* * *
After that dinner, the couples prepared for the weeks to follow.
They talked and texted, were poked and prodded.
Jacob had been in the hospital seven times already in 2021. Four times in 2020, another four in 2019, seven or eight in 2018.
The 41-year-old had primary sclerosing cholangitis, a liver disease that results in scarring inside the bile ducts, narrowing them and damaging the liver.
He’d withered from 197 to 148 pounds, his eyes sunken, his energy gone.
In 2020, his doctor told him he had six months to live without a transplant. And he was not high enough on the list to get one in time.
That’s what drove Sara — so private about her family’s pain — to Facebook.
She’d been praying hard since 2018, the year Jacob’s disease first started to worsen.
It turned out, that was the year Paul had decided to get in shape. He started going to the gym and eating healthier; he lost 25 pounds.
“In hindsight, there was something in the works we couldn’t see,†Sara says.
But for now, they had to look into the unknown.
The transplant was set for a Thursday morning, and Jacob had an idea.
Rent an Airbnb in Omaha for two days before the transplant. Hang out, eat, watch movies, play games, bond.
“Our kids went to different schools and had different friend groups,†Trio said. “We wanted to have a way to bring them together.â€
They celebrated Sara’s 41st birthday, and, on transplant day, the two couples headed out in the dark to UNMC.
Paul went into the operating room first.
Four hours later, the transplant team walked two pounds of his three-pound liver to another operating room.
Two wives prayed.
“Everything went absolutely perfect,†Sara said.
The next morning, a trio of health care workers showed up in Jacob’s room in the ICU to get him out of bed.
They wanted to get him up and walking.
They asked how far he thought he could go.
Jacob was in pain.
He had a question of his own: Where’s Paul’s room?
* * *
Paul was in the hospital for a week.
Jacob stayed 11 days, and then he and Sara moved into a hotel across the street from the medical center, in case they needed emergency care.
He was cleared to return home to Lincoln after a month, a month sooner than doctors had anticipated.
Trio and Sara tended their husbands. The men they called their “boys.â€
The patients who needed help with pain management, getting nourishment in their bellies, their gastrointestinal systems working like they should.
He felt like a puppy, Paul says.
“Lots of energy, and then fall asleep for 12 hours.â€
The men grew ever closer in the hospital during that week. The pandemic limited visiting hours, so during evenings on the transplant floor, they found themselves together, watching TV or talking.
Sitting on the couch, two months later, they are still talking.
About the years they played in a pickup basketball league at church, not friends as much as two guys sweating on the court.
Their wives talk, too. About how Sara went back to school to get her master’s degree after Jacob was diagnosed and, a few years later, got her teaching certificate, knowing she might have to support her family one day.
How Trio had done the same in nursing.
They see the parallels in their stories and the way they all came together.
He felt so connected to Jacob after the surgery, Paul says.
He thought about Trio giving birth to their four boys, the way the pain served a purpose.
That’s how his pain felt.
“I have a twin brother,†Jacob says. “It’s almost like having another brother.â€
Trio remembers Paul after the six-hour surgery asking: How’s Jacob? How’s Jacob?
“He wasn’t totally at peace until he knew,†she says.
Trio and Sara have shared the journey on Facebook. Their faith and fears and funny moments along the way.
It was a way for them to keep friends and family informed, but it grew to be something more.
People told them how inspired they were. How much the story lifted them.
That they didn’t know it was even possible to donate a liver.
Paul’s liver is growing back.
Jacob’s liver is settling in. He’s taking 17 kinds of medication; he’ll always take anti-rejection drugs.
And he will always have a scar that matches the scar of the man beside him on the couch.
The man who humbly entered unknown waters holding out a gift.
Five Cindy Lange-Kubick columns from an upside-down year
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Columns from an upside-down year: An ugly baby?
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Columns from an upside-down year: The Angel in Room 255
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