Rose D'Acquisto: Tireless Organ Donor Advocate
Rose D'Acquisto suffered a loss so sudden, so painful and so permanent that she
believed she could not bear it. A writer, Rose was 34 and wildly in love with Tony, her artist husband, when on Sept. 23, 1996, an undiagnosed brain tumor hemorrhaged and plunged him into an irreversible coma. He was just 35. "Then, I met an angel in the form of Tony's intensive care nurse," Rose says. "She asked if he was an organ donor." From the depths of her grief, Rose knew immediately what her gentle husband would have wanted.
"I'm not going to pretend it wasn't an excruciatingly painful decision," recalls Rose. "We were Romeo and Juliet—if Tony died, I was supposed to have died too. The donation allowed me to walk out of that hospital holding onto a little piece of something that in time opened up and has became more than I ever could have imagined!" That something was hope, which Rose has been passing on to others in a myriad of ways ever since. Among her volunteer efforts, Rose is on the board of NKF's National Donor Family Council Executive Committee, raising awareness and helping to shape public policy on behalf of donor families. And despite working full time, Rose edits a quarterly newsletter of profiles, poems and other writings that help inform and connect organ donors and recipients. She also shares her own story, promoting organ donation as the greatest gift of love.
"There's nothing I wouldn't do for the NKF," she says. "They understand that the stories of kidney patients, transplant recipients and donor families are all linked together." Rose has managed to go on, marrying a fellow writer. "When Tony died, my heart died with him," she says matter-of-factly. "But when I met my husband Paul, I grew a second heart." Sometimes Paul worries that her involvement with the NKF forces her to relive the trauma of Tony's death, but she says it's exactly the opposite. "When I hear someone else's story, I'm amazed at their strength and resilience. Beyond that, donor families are the kind of people you can only hope to know because they're so magnanimously generous."
To learn more about NKF's support services for families of organ donors click here.
