A Heart Finds a New Home
As someone who has had three open-heart surgeries, I found this story about a homeless man needing a heart transplant really remarkable. (First told by Cathy Free in the Washington Post 12-7-19).
He was a homeless man without a support system. As such, Jonathan Pinkard did not qualify to be put on the heart transplant list. The 27-yer-old Warm Springs, GA man realized he was in a very precarious predicament.
He landed several times in the hospital, where he had the good fortune to eventually be tended to by Nurse Lori Wood. After a couple days, she knew full well the seriousness of his situation. As he had no immediate family available, she figured God had brought them together for a reason.
“For me there was no choice,” she said. “I’m a nurse with an extra bedroom. It was not something I struggled with. He had to come home with me.”
A single mom, Nurse Wood checked with her grown son who lived with her. He fully supported her desire to invite Pinkard to move into a spare bedroom. “Make yourself at home,” she offered the man who had no other possessions but a cellphone.
“I couldn’t believe that somebody who had known me only two days would do this,” Pinkard said.
After a few months, Wood filed papers to become Pinkard’s legal guardian.
“She’s been like Mama to me,” he says. “From the day I went home with her, she felt like my second mom.”
The good news is the man finally underwent a heart transplant, and was expected to return to work as a clerk. Indeed a new heart had found a new home—in more ways than one! Simply amazing. Thank you, Nurse Lori Wood for Living Love so Large.