Hello, and welcome to the Gifted Life Podcast, where we have conversations about organ tissue and ideonation and transplantation. You can always find us at the GiftedLife.org. Tell your friends. I'm Lori Seal.
I'm Joey Boudreau. And I'm Nyla Schwab. Coming up on the Gifted Life today. We'll be talking about adoption, loss, and love.
A donor mom will share her story. And we'll also be talking about emotions. We all have them, but we sometimes really don't know what to do with them, right? So we're going to talk about emotional regulation.
Ooh, I like that. Lots to get to here on the Gifted Life. Here we go. Here on the Gifted Life Podcast, we are so pleased to have an in-studio guest.
She is a donor mom and active Lopa volunteer Melanie Marcel. We are so pleased that you're here and that we can talk to you. We feel like you're part of our family. So thanks for being here.
Definitely part of Lopa. Yes. We're talking about adoption, about loss, about love. And we hear that.
We feel that from you whenever you're out. You're telling your story and you're answering questions from the crowd. So we certainly appreciate that. We came to know each other because there was a special little soul in your life named Connor.
Yes, very special soul. Tell us about Connor a little bit. Matt and I tried to have children for 14 years. And then we decided we were going to adopt and we went through Catholic Charities because we're Catholic.
And Connor was adopted from Seoul, Korea. He was born in 2004 and he came home April 21st, 2005. He was the only one. We had probably 50 family members at the airport and he was the only one not crying.
He just kind of gave us this look like, okay, we're up in. And he was just special. We were told by several people that he was not a normal baby, that he was an old soul to say that he would look you at six months old. He would look you in the eye and rub your arm.
By one and a half, he knew all of his alphabet. He knew he would talk like a six year old. Wow. So amazing.
He was definitely a special soul. And the reason we know about him is because of your involvement with Lopa and you're wanting people to know about his story. I just love the pictures. So don't let the pirate have this.
That's like my favorite. You can go to Lopa.org and our hero stories and you can see those cute little pictures as well. But he is a hero and you show up from the three lives. Tell us about that and that process and what you thought about donation.
From my 40th birthday, we decided to go out to a movie and dinner. We left him with a friend of mine who inadvertently left him in a tub with her three year old and he drowned. We don't really know why. He was left alone.
We don't really know how. I was at the time, before this happened, if you would have asked me to be an organ donor, I would have just said no. I can't really tell you why. It wasn't that I was offended by it or adamant about it.
I would have just said no. Connor was in the hospital for five days. He had an episode where his vitals all just basically plummeted and the doctor said, you know, he's not there anymore. And I mean, I didn't talk to Matt about it.
I just looked at her and said we want to donate his organs. I don't know where that came from. Now, being a Catholic, I believe that God was speaking through me. I truly believe that Connor was sent here for two purposes, to save lives and to lead us to the beautiful children that we have now.
He did different things that a normal person wouldn't have made sense. I constantly catch him in the corner of the yard talking like he was talking to someone. But you'd ask him who he was talking to. And he'd say, I'm talking to the bad man that's coming to get me.
And it's like, Connor, there's no bad man that are going to come get you. Connor loved the pool. We had a pool in our backyard. He loved the pool.
Actually, the day before his accident, he would not get in the pool. He was terrified of getting in the pool. He knew something. In my eyes, he did.
I truly believe that Connor was an angel sent here for, and I mean people think I'm crazy, you know, but I truly, truly believe that Connor was sent here for two purposes, to save lives and to lead us to the children we have. We would have never adopted from Guatemala. Guatemala was very difficult to adopt from at the time. And had Connor's accident not happened, we wouldn't have Wyatt and Audrey.
I firmly believe that. Did I get here overnight? It took me a long time. I was very angry because we had tried for a child for 14 years and Connor was sent to us.
But when Connor's last day, we took him to the mall. He was two and a half and he always listened and always stayed by our side. And he took off running away from me in the middle of the food court, went running up to a table with a father and a son. And I went running after him.
I scooped him up and said, Connor, don't do that. Don't ever do that. You don't ever run from mommy and daddy. And he looked me down the face and said, mama, I had to tell that man.
Everything was going to be OK. Now this came from a two and a half year old. Don't know what he meant. There's a lot about that day that I don't know what things went on.
But he had his accident that night and he never woke up from that accident. You know, Melanie, when, okay, so if y'all can see the podcast right now for those who are only hearing us, Melanie and I are sitting across the table from each other. So if I could leap over and give you such a huge hug, I would know. And so we met and we didn't even realize it.
So Melanie and I saw each other at our, the path for remembrance walk in April. And we talked a long time. I got to meet her beautiful kids who are here in the podcast with us and her husband. And but it was weird because it's, I think we both kind of felt like, gosh, we know each other.
It's been a while. And she had asked me to look into finding one of Connor's recipients. And so when it dawned on me. And he had the same time.
Yes. And we were in the news because I could see all from afar. I remember it's where we honor our, our dinner heroes, but I could see all and I would come back and I'm like, oh, they're still talking. Yeah.
Yeah. But we didn't, we just didn't talk to you. And yeah. And, and Matt was like walking the dog back and forth back and forth.
Oh, yeah. We brought the dog. We're inching their way to the car and eventually the whole family, but me and Melanie are talking. I saw that.
And when you told your story, I felt like there's so much connection. So in, in, in your story alone, there's so much joy and, and, and suffering, you know, and that's a paradox to have those two emotions together. And I feel that every time she speak like a, I feel what you're feeling. I think that well, Nyla called me, I guess about a week later.
Yeah. And I, we got in the car and I told Matt, I said, when, from the path to remembrance, I looked at Matt and said, I know who Nyla is. And he said, what do you mean? And I said, Nyla was the one that spoke to us the Nikon or dive.
Mm hmm. And I got in my car thinking, I know them. I know them. That was, that was, that was.
So I didn't know how to ask when she called and I said, were you still working? Were you working? And he even asked it first. We talked for a while.
And then she started asking kind of weird questions like, were you working? 2007. Yeah. And I was like, I was there.
I talked to you all about donation. And so it's, it's just strange. So when you say you tell these stories about Connor and old soul and how he was this gift and this transition to your two beautiful kids that are here because I just in our short conversations have not heard you mentioned Connor without your other two children. Right.
And so again, I go back to like, how do you hold all of this? You and your husband, you said it has not been easy. It's been hard. No.
And I mean, I spoke to a friend of ours who was at the path to remembrance for another hero. And when we saw him, I mean, she, she became a hero maybe two years ago. And when we saw him, he was, I said, how you doing? And you know, now all of these low pay events or blessings for us and they're a chance to share in a, they're a chance to honor Connor.
Well, when we were two years in, it wasn't like that. We were very upset. You know, you go through a lot of why are they here and he's not, you know, and I saw that in him. He was very sad.
And he was, you know, and it's like, I'm not okay. And I told Matt, I said, it's going to take them a while, you know, because it took us probably six years before we were at the point where we felt like it's an honor, you know? He did something wonderful even at two and a half. And he did something that, you know, most people don't think to do, you know, because I would not have become a donor, had it not been for Connor.
And it's not that I saw a donation as something bad. It's just that it's not something I would have done. And I truly believe that God spoke through me because, I mean, Matt's mouth fell to the floor when I said we want to donate his organs because Matt knew I wasn't going to be an organ donor, you know? So I saw his mouth drop, you know?
And people, when I tell this, tell Connor, tell things like this, people think I'm crazy. And you know, Matt and I went to a movie that night and I opened up my phone. I had Connor's picture on it and I flipped open my phone and I looked at Connor's picture. And shortly after that, one of the neighbors to where the accident took place came running in shouting for the more cells.
And I stood up and just as if you were sitting right on the side of me, I heard this is it. I don't know where that came from. But for two weeks, three weeks prior to the accident, we had gone to Florida and to visit my sister and my dad and my sister and I were in her car and I said, we're not going to have Connor very long. I'm very worried.
And she said, oh, I knew mom's worry. And I said, no, I said, I feel like I'm not going to have him very long. And I would rock him and I would cry. Please don't take my baby.
Please don't take my baby. So on some level, I knew and I think on some level, Connor knew, you know, I didn't tell any of this to Matt until after Connor's death because I felt like I was crazy. You know, listening to your powerful story. And I can't even imagine like that.
I don't know that I would be able to like, pull all this story together and still be talking like you do. And how you share, how you feel, your experiences is beautiful. And I think it's helpful for other people who are listening and who are healing also. And you know, life and death, it's all mysterious.
It's something that I think everybody at LOPA who works here, we become very much a family. And when we meet families like you, you're very special to us. And so yeah, and grief, it's so amazing to see how families can bring their loved one forward with them like you do Connor. Yes.
You know, we talked about grief. We talked about that quite often, you know, on the podcast and you talked about, you know, meeting your friend at the Path of Remembrance and seeing where they were, or they are at two years. I was curious as to like what point do you feel like in your life that it changed to where you were ready to meet or ready to engage? You talked about meeting with Nylon, talking about, you know, possibly meeting one of the recipients.
First, I guess, what point were you ready to start meeting or knowing about the recipients for responding? Right away. Right away. I wrote the letter to the recipients probably within a year of Connor's death because it helps with closure.
It helps knowing that this was a real person. I've met both of his kidney recipients. The same doctor did the transplant on both kidney recipients. And one of them was an elderly lady and she lived in Lafayette.
I think she was 70 maybe at the time of her transplant. And then the other one is a very special case. She was one of, I think, the first quadruplets in New Orleans born and they were born with kidney problems. And the doctor said something to her that, you know, something that doesn't normally happen is usually they have to be on dialysis.
She was on a bunch of medications and Connor's kidney started working right away. And she didn't have to be on dialysis. And she takes a very little medicine now. And after several years, we invited her to global wildlife.
She came to global wildlife. And I found out that the organist in our little hometown of Berg was her aunt. Connection. So there was a lot of connection there.
We've become Facebook friends. We've become almost like family, you know. And it does you good to know that someone's life goes on, you know. There was, his liver recipient was two years old at the time.
So it's very important to me to meet her. I would love to meet her. And she's the only one I haven't met to this day. And we are trying.
We're trying because of the length of time and the recipient being a child in a transplant center, sometimes they outgrow and go on to an adult transplant center or move. So we're trying. She'd be 17 because Connor would be 17 right now. Well, you talk about grief.
And I was after Connor's accident. Thank God I didn't have any other children because I couldn't function. Bless this heart, Matt was able to keep it together enough to work. But I had someone from compassionate friends visit me.
And she was from my church and she had lost her daughter at 19. And I saw her probably two years ago, three years ago. And she said, you know, Melanie, she said, when I met you, she said, I did not think you were going to make it. She said, I really, really didn't think you were going to make it.
And it shocked me, you know, because I thought I was keeping it together kind of good. I was hanging on, you know, but she said, no, she said, the condition you were in, she said, I really didn't think you were going to make it. And I really think Lopa has a lot to do with that because in a stance, Connor goes on, you know, he lives on, he lives on in my two children and he lives on in three lives he saved because I truly, truly believe had Connor not died, we wouldn't have the kids we have today. You know, there's, there's just no doubt in my mind about that because he led us to them.
I mean, I tell a story that, you know, when we got, when we went to Florida to see my dad, Monice was there with her baby and her baby was like two, three months old. And he kept looking at me and he'd go up to the baby and he'd come back to me and he'd say, come on, I want that baby. And so, Connor, you can have that baby. Mama, I want that baby.
Well, all the way back home from Florida. I heard mama, I want that baby. Mama, I want that baby. It's like, Connor, you can't have that baby.
I said, we can maybe get you a sister, but you can't have that baby. That's Tiffany's baby. Well, after he died and we started adoption process almost immediately because of our ages, we were aging out of all programs. And we, I told Matt, I said, I want to adopt too.
And I said, I think I'm a boy, mama. I said, so we could adopt two boys. And Matt said, no, he said, you are not adopting two boys because it's soon as you get those two boys home, you're going to want to go. So, he said, it's going to be a boy and a girl.
And I said, okay. So we started looking into it and we adopted, started adoption process out of Guatemala, which was supposed to be closed. We had to have INS approval by November 13th. I think we got INS approval on the 7th of November.
But they send you pictures to choose and my little girl, Audrey's picture, she was in a blue outfit. So I contacted the agency and I said, no, I want a boy and a girl. And she said, oh, that is a girl. Let me send you another picture.
And she sent me a picture of Audrey in this cute little dress. She was probably two months old and she was a spitting image of that baby. And I broke down crying and I told Matt, I said, it's that baby. And you see, my mother had a love for our Lady of Fatima, something fierce.
And Audrey's name, given name by her birth mom was Fatima. So it was a no brainer, you know, why it was a no brainer. The minute we looked at him, we just knew that Connor had chosen these children. And I truly, truly believe that that was his purpose in life.
He was here to save lives and to lead us to the beautiful kids we haven't today. And you are a family unit. I love how you guys all work together to honor Connor and then you just work so well as a family. I do want to bring up.
I think everybody was at the Garth Brooks concert, not too long ago. No, not everybody. And we did it. It was a big deal type of stay-in.
And so we were texting during the Garth Brooks concert and the dance is a song that's so close to your heart. And today we're talking about adoption, about faith, about love. And that song speaks to you. So tell us a little bit about that and why.
Well, for Connor's funeral and as part of my healing, I did a video of his life and the song playing in the background is the dance because I could have missed all the pain, but I would have had to miss the dance. And with raising Connor, it was a dance. And I did not work. I worked at his school, his preschool for a half a day while he was there because I couldn't be that far from him.
For two and a half years, I was with him 100% of the time and had, I wouldn't go back and change anything. And the song just speaks to me. And I know it speaks to a lot of people because I read a lot of things online about that song. And I cried the whole time he was playing it.
I think all of our lip accrue because we have a Facebook group that we chit-chat and so everybody was checking in like, we'll be there. And then when you mention the dance, then everybody was like, oh, I can't wait to hear that as well. So when it was going, I was thinking about all these faces, including Connor. And thinking about you and the sea of people listening to that song at that moment.
Yes. My sister actually got on Garth Brooks' personal page and tried to get him to say something. And I said, Harriet, I really don't think he saw that. And I think he's got a lot more to do than visit his Facebook page.
But it was sweet. She knows how much that song means to me. And like I said, I did the video mostly out of some sort of grief counseling kind of thing. But it's all a process.
I mean, I definitely was not this outspoken after it happened. I was more outspoken about people leaving their toddlers alone in Bathtub. But it's a process and LOPA helps with that process because if you look at them as a hero and look at what their life has accomplished, which is more than what most of us accomplish in our lives as adults, it helps with the healing. I was not here 15 years ago.
I probably wasn't in this space 12 years ago. It's a process. And I think all the LOPA events help with that. And you're a strong advocate for not only donation, which we appreciate, but your faith and adoption in general.
And when she's speaking, as you guys, you can hear it here, it's very quiet, like all eyes on her and just taking this all in. And when you talk about concrete, we feel that when you share and we're grateful that you do it. And we know that when you go to speak, that's an emotional day leading up to it and then after. You say it's an emotional day for his day that he came home.
It's an emotional day of the day of his death, which is also my birthday. I don't really celebrate my birthday. It's very hard to celebrate my birthday because it's got some hard memories to it, especially my 40th birthday. But like I said, LOPA has a very special place in my heart because I don't know that I would have survived had it not been for LOPA and our friend Libby.
Libby got me through a lot. And I don't think she realizes how much she did. She does for people. She's a little bit too.
And going to global wildlife every year and searching her out and the LOPA quilt, it took me, it was probably seven years before I did LOPA Conner Square. That too was very emotional, but it's something that LOPA does that again remembers your hero and it makes you feel like no one's going to forget my child. That is so, that's powerful. And we won't forget Conner.
And I want people to know that if you need to talk, if you need to vent, you can call me. I'll talk to anyone who's lost a child. Every time I see someone on the news that's lost a child, I say a little prayer because those issues you never want to walk in. It's somebody's shoes you never want to walk in.
We just want to thank you for being here. You keep thanking LOPA for us being part of the healing process. But you being here is why we do what we do. And we thank you and your beautiful family and Conner for being part of our lives and touching us.
Well, thank you. We appreciate it. We think you're awesome. Thanks to Melanie, to Matt, to Audrey, to Wyatt.
Thanks for what you do, not only to honor Conner but all donors and to celebrate life. So we're one team. Yes, Sharon, and your real and you're honest. And remember, if people have questions, like you're real and you're honest and you answer it and you help them understand.
Well, it's not. You can't chase somebody from where they are in their grief path. Everybody goes through grief differently. And you just have to love them through it.
And you have to convince them to be kind to themselves. Because a lot of the times, for a long time, I feel like this is all my fault. You know, I pick the person to keep my child and I picked wrong. And you have to let them go through their grief the way they need to go through their grief and love them through it.
That is a beautiful way of wrapping up. You know, letting others know to be kind to yourself. I think we all could do some kindness in this world. And that's important.
I learned a lot just sitting here today. Always learn from Melanie. Thanks to Melanie and the Marcel family. More to come.
Here on the Get to Life podcast, we take a moment for mental health. Yeah, and this time we're talking about emotions right now. That's right, Joey. Dejuss.
Oh, I'm here. We start off emotions. We all have them. Yes.
So sometimes bigger than others. And what we want to talk about right today, which I'm excited about, is just how everything comes at us and how do you regulate all these emotions? As we heard from our guests today, those were some really big emotions. Right.
Yeah. Up some downs of life. So emotional regulation, there's a definition for it. Emotional regulation refers to the process by which individuals influence, which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express their feelings.
Emotional regulation can be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious and may have effects at one or more points in emotion producing process. Okay. What does that mean? It just means that we all have positive and negative feelings.
And how can we strengthen those? How can we use them? And then how can we control them? Yes.
I got my pen. I'm ready. Okay. No, we're going to keep it short and sweet.
So let's talk first about culture though. I want to start big and then kind of work our way down. But culturally, have you ever gone to another country and you look around and say not in the West and you look around and you look at the architect, the food, everything about it. We don't see emotions, but emotions are different.
Everywhere we go in our world, the culture creates our emotions. So with that, outside of the West, typically emotions are kind of exchanged between two people and are kind of on the outside. But what we're going to be talking about is in the West, here with us, we're going to talk about the emotions on the inside. And so with that, let's talk about some of the things that we've all experienced where life throws something hard at you and you get angry or you get sad.
It's unexpected. And this is what, what do you do with it? And we all kind of have a regulator within us. But what we have to try to do is we have to kind of think about how to slow down, how to pause.
And we are given big emotions. We want to not, let's talk about the don'ts first. We don't want to stuff them, avoid them. We don't want to do some things to take us away from those emotions, like excessive drinking or substance, shopping, eating, sleeping, all these things that can just create a whole new slew of problems.
So things we do want to do is we want self-awareness. So we want to actually acknowledge what that feeling is, name it. That helps. So if I'm really upset with my snarky teenager, I would say, okay, I'm frustrated, step away and then realize that I can pause on that.
Everything that we want to do is mindful awareness. We just want to think what is controlling my thoughts right now. And then also what's going on in my body. Third thing, cognitive reappraisal, just maybe changing your thoughts on.
And then things that break it down even simpler is like a third person self-talk. So do any of y'all talk to yourselves? All the time. I don't want myself out in first, like third person.
I don't say Joey, but for the most part, but I'll say, what are you doing? You know, it's about. I'll walk through like, okay, that's how you reacted to that situation. Maybe next time I thought it'd taken a break, had more information.
It would have been different. So next time let's pause. I'm just like at three o'clock in the morning, you know, and you can't sleep. And he's like, okay, at two o'clock yesterday afternoon, I should have.
Talking to myself that way. Yeah, you can't even say, all right, Nyla, stop thinking, slow down. So yeah, like you can, both ways. Excellent.
Excellent way of kind of taking charge of those emotions because if you think about it, emotions are going to come and go, come and go. But it's how you deal with those emotions. And that's what we're trying to slow down. I have a little one who's on the ball field.
And so, you know, you hear parents like, oh, that was unfair or he should have been saved or something. And so you see a lot of these younger kids get very upset. So I'm trying to teach them like life's not always going to be fair and you're going to watch how you respond to that, right? Like you control you.
You can only control you. So having those conversations. So that's why I'm taking these news. So that's good stuff.
But lawyer, teacher, and that's what we do. We have other people and when you talk about cultures, we respond to people's emotions. And so we feed off of each other. Oh, that's no doubt.
Like if someone's emotional around you, it's almost like when someone is emotional, like near you and you guys start talking about that certain thing, you start feeding off of each other and it goes up, it ramps up your emotions exponentially. Yes. And it's hard to stop. It really is.
And all of a sudden you're at level 10 and you think about it after and why do we feed each other so much to get to that point? And then when you're like, just what you described. So at that point, like my blood is pumping my heart pumping really feel the change in you and I don't like that feeling. Okay.
And that takes training. Right. It takes intentional effort to be thinking about this and think, okay, this, I need to pause. What do I do with this?
Do I walk away? Do I keep going? But we all have that ability to increase our awareness about what's going on on the inside, where our thoughts are and what to do with these emotions. So there's lots of things that you, this is really just kind of, it's just, it's just a little bit of information that I hope that people look into.
You can Google emotions, you can Google emotional regulation, you can talk to a therapist or a counselor if you feel like you have very, very big emotions because there's a spectrum of emotions. And we just kind of want to find that balance for ourselves so we can think because when your emotions get too big, sometimes it takes away your creativity. It takes away your thinking process. Sure.
So we just want to slow it down a little bit. I like it. And then it's good to know that other people have that thinking too and that it happens to other people, not just you. Yeah.
There's a saying that says feelings are visitors. We should let them come and go. So keep that. Stay a little too long.
I like the tips. I have a topic you'd like us to cover here on the gift of life. Just email us info at the gift of life. You're on the gift of life.
We have a question and answer segment. Yeah. And this one is going to go to our family services expert Nyla. So Nyla, can I find out who received my father's eyes after his death?
I'm going to say that Lopa, how it works for Louisiana is that you would reach out to us, our family service department. So you can either reach out to us on our website and that site is Lopa.org. Or you can call the 1-800-number that Lori always shares and just ask for family services. We have three.
I thanks for the state of Louisiana, which we work closely with. So we will direct you to the right. I think and support you along the way and see what direction we need to go and how we can best help you. So yes, I hope that if you were in Louisiana, that you'll reach out to us because we'd be happy to support you.
Yeah. I had a family and they just, they were wondering and then they ever took action to call. So you won't know the answer unless we check into it and we have wonderful staff to be able to do that. So please reach out, right?
All right. Maybe you have a question for us. You can give us a call. We are writing this story to tell you a little bit about our beautiful baby who saved lives through organ donation.
His name is Connor and he was two and a half years old. We don't know where to start to tell you about our precious boy because we think about him constantly. You see, Connor was our only child and the most important person in our lives. I quit my job to become a stay at home mom and now I'm so glad that I did because now I have two years of spending every second of every day with my beautiful baby boy.
My husband and I tried for 13 years to have a child of our own when we finally decided to adopt the road lettuce to Connor. Connor came home on April 22nd, 2005 from his country Korea. When he got off the plane with his escort and was placed in our arms, he looked at us as though to say, where have you been? Our entire family was at the airport to welcome him home and he was the only one not crying.
He was a very bright, happy, beautiful baby who loved his life. He was always smiling and loved music. His favorite song was Row Row Row Row Your Boat and his favorite instrument was the guitar or the bow guitar. He was very intelligent and spoke very well.
Everyone who met him commented on how well he spoke. He was also very intuitive. He could always tell when something was bothering someone and always tried to make them feel better. There was a time when we went to visit his dad at the office.
Connor saw a scratch on the hand of my husband's boss and Connor asked what had happened. He said he had a bobo and Connor immediately leaned over and gave his hand a kiss. He was always trying to make others happy. On June 30th, my 40th birthday, we left Connor with a friend who had also been his teacher while my husband and I went to dinner in a movie.
Connor died tragically when she left him alone in a bathtub with her three-year-old daughter. We don't know exactly what happened because there was no adult in the bathroom. All we know is that our lives will never be the same after losing our special little angel. This is why we decided to donate Connor's organs so that another family would not have to feel the pain that we felt and to know that Connor's life, no matter how short, would have as much meaning to others as he did to us.
We don't know if we will ever eventually understand why God took Connor so soon after sending him to us. All we know is that our lives will never be the same without him in it. Connor touched everyone he came in contact with during his life with the grace of an angel. Now he has touched his recipients with the same grace in his death.
There is no greater gift in life and Connor's life was the greatest gift God has ever given my husband and me. And now we pause to say thank you to Connor for the gift of life. Another episode of the gift of life in the book, Skye's that was episode 190. We hope you enjoyed.
We want to thank everyone for listening and remember you can always register as an organ eye and tissue donor anytime, register me. That'll work. So much thanks go out to the Marcel family who came in studio here. Love them.
And we love that. Have a Melanie in here of course first talking all about Connor and bringing him to us and then of course having Matt and Audrey and Wyatt read the hero story. It was just so hard felt. And they do it all the time.
They advocate for such great things, one of them being donation and they do it together as a family and we love that. The best place to find us guys is at our website, the gifted life that work. Listen there and find links to listen on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to podcast. If you listen on Apple podcast, please leave us at five star rating.
It really helps others find our podcast on social. You can like our page, Facebook, we have the gifted life podcast. Check us out. You can also follow us on both Twitter and Instagram at giftedlifepod.
Thanks for spending some time with us here today. We hope that you go out and do something you wouldn't normally do to help us make life happen. One big team. This is a production of the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency or LOPA.
The gifted life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Bujro and Nalishwa. Our executive producer is Kirsten Heinz. Producer Ishelon Caraway intern is Rebecca Renham and we are recorded, engineered and mixed in our Covington Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.