Out of tragedy comes hope and community spirit.
Graham’s Gift is an initiative born out of the devastating loss of a young infant from Foxboro.
Graham Redner tragically passed away at eight months old from the flu that turned into cardiac arrest over the Christmas holidays.
Prior to Graham’s death, he was registered as an organ donor, so his liver and other tissues were donated through the Trillium Gift of Life Network to save the life of another little girl in Ontario.
“That brought our family a lot of peace, but we wanted to keep his memory going,” his mother Tristin Redner explained in a phone interview.
“I think when you have a child that has died, the biggest fear is that people are going to forget them, or that their memory is going to be forgotten.”
The Redner family started the Graham’s Gift movement to allow small acts of kindness to travel from person to person, carrying his name and his spirit along the way.
“I was sitting at home, and my kids were back to school at that point, and I was really deep in my grief, and it was really difficult to look at photos and videos, and I really wanted to remember those good moments again,” explained Redner.
“I thought, ‘what bigger act of kindness is there than organ donation?’ A friend of mine actually designed the card and wrote the beautiful poem on the back, and she was the one that kind of pushed me to get it going, so I have a lot to thank her for.”
The hope with this initiative, Redner said, is that it will have the added effect of growing the number of organ donations.
Redner and her family have been raising awareness and encouraging community members to donate funds for Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), where Graham received his treatment.
The family was recently at a Belleville Senators game passing out cards with links on them directing them to a donation page for CHEO’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).
“When we talked to Trillium Gift of Life, they explained that prior to Graham, it had been two years since they’d had a pediatric donor, and with pediatric patients, children can only receive organs from other children, but there’s adults as well all over the province right now that are in need,” Redner explained.
“By registering yourself, if you are ever in a position to give, it also gives your family an idea of what your wishes are. If you can have that registration done ahead of time. I think it’s of a great benefit.
Redner praised the community spirit of giving from family members and residents of the Quinte region.
“It really takes a village when you go through something like this. Our family obviously has been an incredibly supportive network during this,” she expressed.
“We’ve been able to lean on them, and they’ve just shown up whether it be (with) meals or (for) childcare or just time spent, but then also the amount that the community has done for us and the number of local businesses that have reached out to us to support Graham’s gift.”
“It just shows you what an incredible place we live in here in Belleville.”
Visit the Graham’s Gift Instagram page for more information on the cause.
A poem written in memory of Graham Redner following his tragic death over the Christmas Holidays. Photo: Graham’s Gift Instagram Page
