Hello! Allison Brunner here.... I know many of our sisters are reporting on the big event of the day -- the swimming competition. So, as your 'reporter' on the scene, I want to share a special moment here at the Games that I was privileged to witness as a member of the media. And this is how I want to start my story -- like a feature in an upcoming issue of The Sphinx:

The lives of Michiganders Suzan and Eugene Toth were changed forever on May 5, 2000. On that day, their healthy son Steven, who was only a week shy of his 22nd birthday, was critically injured in a car accident. A day later he passed away. It was something no parent ever expects to happen....

Still, though their decision to donate Steven's organs was a difficult one, it was made easier because of a conversation they'd had with their son just three short months before. He sat down with his parents, out of the blue, and told them he wanted to arrange to have his organs donated if something were ever to happen to him.

That conversation had an impact no one could've imagined, including the Toths -- until today.

The day their son was taken away from them, five other people were given back their lives: two received Steven's kidneys, another his heart, still another his skin. And then there was 'Kim' -- a woman who received his liver.

Kim looks like your typical athletic mom-on-the-go -- someone so healthy, you wouldn't think twice when you pass her on the street. But it wasn't always that way.... And today, for the first time, with her family gathered around her, Kim met the Toths -- the people whose son, and whose decision, made her well again. The emotion as these two families embraced -- two families who will forever be connected by Steven -- was simply overwhelming to everyone in that media room. I could literally feel the love in that meeting, more than six years in the making!

I want to thank you for reading this blog, and for your wonderful comments -- and I only wish you could be here to listen to the stories with your own ears. They are as incredible as the people who tell them. I'm so grateful to have had this opportunity to share my impressions with you. Look for more from me later!

LITP,

Allison Brunner
Delta Theta '06

P.S. Big props to my 'boo' Katie Herschede today for arranging to have Phi Sigs award the medals at the swimming event today.... I was thrilled to be able to give out two gold medals and one bronze!