A bittersweet gift

Joshua Saul photo

Brenda and Gary Kingsley hold the blanket their 4-year-old daughter Hannah was wrapped in when she died. The Kingsleys donated Hannah's kidneys after her death, saving the life of a 46-year-old father of five.

Hannah was born prematurely on the same day her father, Gary Kingsley, was scheduled to donate stem cells to a man dying of cancer. Early in Brenda Kingsley's pregnancy, she and Gary had been told that Hannah would be born with a congenital heart defect. They spent the months before Hannah's December due date in Portland, where Brenda could get the medical care she needed.

Years earlier, Gary had registered with the National Marrow Donor Program's Be the Match registry as an organ and stem cell donor, and in September 2004 the organization told Gary he was the best match for a 54-year-old man with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The donation was scheduled over two days in Seattle in November, and Gary agreed because Hannah wasn't due until December.

When Brenda went into labor the night before Gary was scheduled to fly to Seattle, he called and asked if the donation could be postponed until later in the month. There was a fear that Hannah would need heart surgery as soon as she was born, and he didn't want to leave the state. The donation couldn't be pushed back, but the National Marrow Donor Program did find a hospital in Portland where the donation could take place, just across the river from where Hannah was born.

The day after Hannah was born Gary spent eight hours donating stem cells that were sped to Seattle and ended up saving the recipient's life. Gary is one of only 60 Alaskans who have donated stem cells to an unrelated recipient since the program began in 1987, according to a spokesperson for the National Marrow Donor Program.

In her four years of life, Hannah had five major heart surgeries. When she was six months old an operation left a deep wound in her chest, and a nurse changed the dressing every other day. The process took 60 minutes, and was extremely painful for Hannah.

"She would be bathed in sweat and I would be bathed in sweat by the time we got done with the hour," said Gary, an air traffic controller at Merrill Field in Anchorage.

Hannah was a beautiful child, feisty but very polite. She screamed and fought when her parents took her to the hospital, sometimes 25 times a month, but always stopped to thank the nurses when she left.

"Bravest person I've ever known," Gary said.

Gary sang a lullaby to Hannah while the nurse worked, a simple song he made up for his youngest daughter: "I love my little Hannah girl ... she is the sweetest in the world."

Hannah got cold easily, and during last year's Christmas season she could only play outside with her four sisters and brothers for 15 minutes at a time before Gary and Brenda would bring her back inside to warm up for an hour. Her immune system was weak, and she was kept home from Sunday school whenever there was a bug going around.