What’s in a birthday photograph? (And a few notes in a diary…)

Four years after Lucia’s third liver transplant, tests showing significant anaemia, requiring blood transfusions. More tests discovered bleeding from oesophageal varices. Endoscopy done with sedation, no longer the general anaesthetic of pediatrics – little preparation and much mental stress. Varices repaired, banded, at least for now.

Still in hospital with enlarged stomach. Diagnosed as constipation. “No,” Lucia said, “I think it’s fluid.” Two days later, after more patient, but stressful insistence, another scan proved her right and the fluid was drained.

Lucia out of hospital, and home for her birthday. Her sister made the cake.

Back into hospital that evening.

Revising, from a hospital bed, for chemistry ‘A’ level exam. A resit. School offer to arrange for her to sit the exam at home, or in hospital. Not up to it.

Waiting for news of a scholarship to Cork University (offered – delight all round). Entry depends on exam results.
Sadly, no mercy given for mitigating circumstances so it wasn’t to be.

Three days after her birthday, Lucia was due to attend a garden party in Buckingham Palace. Invitation for Lucia and “one other”. No question for Lucia, the other would be her sister, delighted to accompany Lucia anywhere, even with all her ambivalence about a royal invitation.

Unable to attend.

Rumours, half hints, overheard sentences between medics, about a possible fourth transplant. Lucia longing for her pediatric medical team and their straight talking. Longing for honest information and inclusion. Concerned, not only for the implications for herself but the likelihood of her family, especially her sister, starting to explore again the options for being living donors.

All that. And so much more.

Do you see it in that snapshot of a 19 year old’s birthday, and the delight at her sister’s cake?

What do we really know about the lives of so many around us? What lies behind their smiles, their actions, their words? What are they waiting for, fearful of, hoping for?

As we go through another birthday without her, we are, and always will be, grateful beyond words for the twelve extra birthdays we shared together thanks to the kindness of strangers, organ donors and their families. We don’t know how or when they had the conversations that led to their consent for that precious gift; we can only hope the decisions were made in easier times and not in the last moments and under deep stress.

Those decisions gave us the opportunity for the shared joy in the photograph, for the love that baked a cake, and the warmth and laughter of the day we could share together. Today, as any other day, we are learning the gentle strength of gratitude…

The deep green hedgerows around us gleam with hawthorn, draped in early-summer white blossoms like a procession of traditional bridal gowns.

What connection with the usual themes of Live Loudly Donate Proudly blogs?  Simply, there is every good reason for recognising and enjoying the best of beauty when it appears around us, and the free gifts that enhance our lives.

Good stories can do that, and we are, potentially, surrounded by them.  Ruth Medjber, (“Medj as in hedge, ber as in teddy”), a Dubliner, started taking photographs when she was three, after her parents gave her a pink plastic camera.  Now a professional photographer, Ruth has found herself enthralled by the stories within the portraits of the people she photographs.   Sin Scéal Eile, That’s another story, is her podcast project to meet, photograph, and chat with 365 people in 2026.  Each person will be someone who considers Ireland their home (however they found their way here) and a new story will be posted each day.  The podcast series is heavy with beautiful, fascinating, funny, moving stories. Human stories, told for free, offered to us all as a gift, gleaming brighter than hawthorn blossom.

As Lucia’s Live Loudly Donate Proudly campaign developed, she encouraged each of us to find and believe in our own voice, to use it with courage and commitment for the good.  It may include, as it did for Lucia, taking some of our hardest stories, telling them honestly, even rawly, and transforming them into resources for others.

In mid-May, Lucia’s sister, Alice, was bridesmaid for a very special friend.  Alice and Lucia had become a foursome with two girls from over the road, Caitlin and Jasmine, when they were all very young.  Their friendships grew and strengthened, even as Lucia’s liver condition took us all into the world of transplants.

The youngest of the four, Jasmine, the bride’s sister, gave her own speech at the reception. And what a speech it was.  She spoke of the missing bridesmaid, their friend, Lucia, and of all the dreaming and plotting and planning through their years, including the kinds of weddings they all might have wanted.  Some of those early dreams became part of the day’s gift, and their friend was as present as she could be.

Jasmine’s words were brave, and it took a different kind of courage to listen, no less so when it was widened to include others who were missing from the day but not from the minds and hearts of others in the room.  On the tables, in small gift packages in front of each guest, a purple and white wristband with the reminder to Live Loudly, Donate Proudly.

We are posting this blog on the sixth anniversary of the morning Lucia closed her eyes for the last time. We will forever hear her voice and sense her boundless gratitude to her donors, and to so much more, inviting each of us to open our eyes wide to the beauty that is in us and around us, to the gifts we are given that make our lives full, and the gifts we can be for each other.

Our gift for today, through the kindness of Ruth Medjber and her team, is a link to the podcast with some of Lucia’s story, and a doorway into many more…