This book is about facing challenges. Being miserable. Finding faith. Opening up to support. Not being so darned self-sufficient. It chronicles a time in my life that was filled with pain, fear, anger, yearning, learning, love, challenge, hope, trust, and joy.

This is the story of my heart transplant journey, but it is also about so much more. Not everyone faces a heart transplant. But most people face challenges, heartbreak, fear, anger, loneliness, frustration, and adversity in one form or another.

Life can be fulfilling regardless of circumstances. We have choices; we can act. I know that now. I didn't know it on a cool November night in Los Angeles when a five-foot nine, one-hundred-eighty-pound mountain man opened the door at my friend's party.

I met my husband Barry when I was forty-three and he was thirty-seven. I can picture him now with his strong, clear features, wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, and hiking boots-the epitome of rugged fitness. It was love at first sight for him. For me, it took about ten days. He was moving to Boulder, Colorado, three weeks later, following his heart's desire to be in the mountains, away from the traffic and craziness of the big city. He was starting all over again, with no work in sight, with just the passion to be true to himself. Meeting me complicated things for him because he was afraid I would keep him from achieving his goal. He didn't know that years before we met I promised myself that if the right person showed up in my life, I would follow him anywhere. I was a teacher, after all, and I could always get work. We spent lots of time together before he left, but leave he did.

I was with him when he said goodbye to his mother. They held each other, hugged, and cried. All these years later, as I see the depth of this man's loyalty and love for his family and friends, I realize how much a measure of his character those precious moments with his mother were.

For the next six months, as Barry settled in and found work in Boulder, he sent me three love letters a day and called every night. Six months later I had a teaching job in Boulder and we were married. I married someone I hardly knew. But I was forty-three and figured I had learned something in all those years, so I just went for it.

The wedding took place on June 17, 1984, in his brother and sister-in-law's backyard in Westlake Village, California. We didn't have much money and a fancy wedding wasn't possible, so friends catered the affair. The day was glorious, the food scrumptious, and everyone had a good time. Asking friends to help was out of character for me then. Much later, when I was very sick, asking for help became a lesson about giving and receiving that would be crucial for the rest of my life.

My sister, Joanne, was my matron of honor. Ever since I was very young, I have been devoted to and deeply in love with Joanne. I treasure the photos of her from my wedding day: there she is, petite in stature, with a bit of a moon face, wearing a lovely Indian dress and gauzy hat, being so present and loving with me. Neither of us knew then that we were both genetically coded for big trouble. It was simply a beautiful day.

Barry and I honeymooned in San Diego and then drove to Boulder. We arrived in the middle of the night at the house Barry had rented for us. In the next morning's light, standing in the front yard with its one very tall elm tree and its beautiful, extensive lawn, Barry told me that just before he came back to Los Angeles for our wedding he had, on hands and knees, used clippers to cut the entire lawn because he didn't have a lawnmower. I was beginning to learn about the perseverance and fortitude of this new person in my life.

We didn't know then that I had a time bomb ticking in me in the form of an inherited heart disease called cardiomyopathy. In less than ten years it would threaten my life and take my sister's and two cousins' lives. It would cause my cousin Mel to get a heart transplant, and lead me to a heart transplant.

We also didn't know that we would be tested physically, emotionally, and spiritually to face that enormous challenge. During those next ten years, we would discover ways to access our own strength, determination, and faith, as well as to accept support from community, family, and friends. When Barry and I started our life together, however, we knew nothing of what lay ahead.

Barry loved babies and children, so it wasn't long before the topic of parenting surfaced. Many younger couples are advised to discuss this, as well as many other critical relationship topics, before they marry. We just got married and discussed everything afterwards. I wasn't sure I wanted children, but certainly my biological clock was ticking and I didn't have a whole lot of years to consider the issue. I took deeply to heart the advice of my sister. She said that parenting, under the best of circumstances is so challenging that she hoped I'd wait for a completely green light before entering the process.

The green light turned on in the spring of 1986 when we were vacationing at the hot springs in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Watching families playing in the pool, seeing the joy of that connection, was a big "yes" for me. That decision, like the decision to marry Barry, came from my heart not my head. My beautiful heart was guiding my life, and I was listening. Pregnancy didn't happen, though, and time was passing. We decided to consider adoption, and on March10, 1988, nine months after our call to an adoption agency, we held Sara Rachael Shaw in our arms for the first time. She was five weeks old and awesomely beautiful, with big blue eyes and light blond peach fuzz for hair. I was a mother and my whole life changed. By that time I was forty-seven years old, five years away from my first hospitalization and nine years away from a heart transplant.

Most people have no idea of what goes on with a person who is waiting for a transplant. Each journey is unique, but one thing is common to everyone on that waiting list. They were living normal and healthy lives before they became ill and began cycling down physically. A transplant is the last resort, the only possibility for life after all other avenues have been explored.

I have written this book for three reasons. First, it burst forth, so eager to be told that it almost seemed to write itself. Second, I want to offer what I've learned to others who may be going through their own life-challenging experiences. Third, I wish to honor and express my gratitude to my heart donor, his family, and to donor families everywhere. It is only because of their generous gift that I am alive to write this story.

From Dying to Live: From Heart Transplant to Abundant Life, p. xiii-xvii. Copyright © 2005 by Gaea Shaw. Published by Pilgrim's Progress, Inc.

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