Testimonials
Erasto Sierra
Hello my name is Erasto Sierra and my family will be forever grateful to Willy family that donated the kidney to me I recieved my transplant in November of 2016 I am now blessed to be here to enjoy my grandkids and family and to see the world and it’s beauty. I am blessed to carry such a wonderful boy name Willy as part of me and my life, the real heroes are Willy family, look at it this way there could have been two tragedies, but my Willy family turned their tragedy into a blessing and I will forever be grateful.
Elizabeth Ruby
Willy, My Guardian Angel
On November 11, 2016, I received the most precious gift since my parents gave me life. It was what doctors described as a liver that was perfect for me in every way. Forty years before when I was six months old, I was diagnosed with Alpha One, a disease that was progressively destroying my liver. Some Alpha One patients do not survive childhood. The disease advances at a different pace in each patient. I had always known that the time would come when my liver could no longer sustain me. I was placed on a transplant list when I was 39. I, and so many friends and family, prayed that I might be blessed with a transplant. Our prayers were answered thanks to Willy’s wonderful family who made such a courageous and generous decision in a horrific moment in their lives.
Our prayers quickly went to this magnanimous family, whom we would not know for over a year due to transplant protocols. All we knew was that the donor was a 10-year-old boy. Our hearts that were overflowing with appreciation and gratitude were also saddened by the reason for our gratefulness. It was hard to reconcile our joy against the loss of a 10-year-old and the grief his parents and family were going through.
In 2018, we got to meet Willy’s wonderful family. It is a day that means so much to me and my mom and stepdad who visited them with me. There were a lot of tears, but also a lot of love. The Castro family will always be a part of our lives.
It is now 5 ½ years later, and I am healthier than I have ever been. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of Willy. I have pictures of him in my home and at work. My family teases me when I tell them on the 11thof each month how many years and months it has been since the transplant and how grateful I am to Willy and his family. Willy is a part of me and I try to stay healthy as much for him as for me.
I will never find words adequate to express the enormity of what the Castro’s did by giving me, a total stranger, a second chance at life. They, and Willy, the child I never had the fortune to know, will always be in my prayers. I thank them from the bottom of my heart – a heart that beats on with the support of Willy’s liver.
