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Losing loved ones unexpectedly can bring unexplainable sorrows. Time seems to be the only alternative that subdues the melancholy absence left behind, yet, as Beverly Kendrick found out, closure can come in many different ways.
Having lost her only child, 20-year-old Dereck Lowery-Kendrick, a 2009 graduate of Horace Furness High School, 1900 S. Third St., was shot during a February attempted robbery in North Philly. A doctor asked her about donating her son’s organs. At first, she was uncertain, but her final decision would bring her some needed buoyancy.
“I never have been an organ donor or knew about it, but when my son passed and they told me it could save four lives, wanted to do it,” Kendrick, a resident of the 1900 block of Hoffman street, said. “It has made me so proud that even though my son died, there are four people alive because of him.”
Receiving thank you letters from those who used Kendricks’ heart, kidneys and right lung, the Kendrick family has had a sense of closure, she said, they could not have received anywhere else.
“It’s just really unexplainable,” she said. “When I was told that his death was not in vain, it felt good.”
Patricia Nelson, an advocate for organ donation awareness, invited Kendrick to be a part of the 16th annual Dash for Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Sunday that launched at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They were two of more than 450 members of David’s Parrot Party team — established in 2007 after Nelson lost her son, David Jr. The women walked in honor of their sons and Alvin Way, a Furness student who passed away after running in the ’09 dash.
Nelson, a grants compliance manager at Furness, has taken part in the Gift of Life Donor Program race for the past four years commemorating her son. Nelson’s dedication to the Gift of Life Club has seen considerable growth but it is stories like Kendrick’s that make her the proudest.
“In that moment, when Beverly found out he would not survive and decided to donate his organs, I know it must have been hard,” Nelson, of Second and Greenwich streets, said. “This [past] Sunday when she was with us at the dash, we hoped her spirits were uplifted. Uniting people like this is what it’s all about.”
The Parrot Party team sported T-shirts with Kendrick’s name on the back along with pins raising awareness in his name. Kendrick has now become an advocate as well.
“I would just like to say how important it is to know about donating. I feel that a lot of people are wary about it because that is how I felt in the beginning. I didn’t know until my son died, but other peoples’ lives can be changed for good and it is such a great feeling to be a part of helping others,” Kendrick said. SPR
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