“What, Fred? Another book?”
Yes. Another book.
Apparently, my version of slowing down involves opening a new Word document. Some people retire and take up fishing. I collect unfinished manuscripts and convince myself I can work on just one more.
Jeri has probably stopped believing me when I say, “I’ve got an idea.”
But this one has been on my mind for a while.
I’m working on a book called Charles Gift, about Charles, the young man whose heart now beats in my chest. His life. His family. The people who knew him and the stories they still carry.
I’ve written plenty about what happened to me. The waiting, the hospital, the transplant, the recovery, and my ongoing career as a human pincushion. I can tell you what it felt like to wait for a heart and what it feels like to wake up grateful that it’s still doing its job.
But there’s someone else in this story. Someone I never got to meet.
And I want to know him.
I’ve been fortunate enough to meet Charles’s life partner, his son, his mom and dad, and some of his friends. There’s something hard to explain about sitting with people who loved the man whose heart is keeping you alive. You’re grateful to be there, but you also know why someone is missing from the room.
I can shake their hands. I can listen to their stories. I can thank them, although “thank you” feels awfully small sometimes.
What I can’t do is turn to Charles and say, “Tell me about yourself.”
So I asked the people who knew him.
Tell me about Charles. What was he like? What made him laugh? What did he do that drove you crazy? What do you remember when you think about him?
Because those things matter to me.
I want to know more than his name and the fact that he was my donor. I want to know the man his family knew. The dad his son knew. The partner, the son, the friend.
And they’ve responded. Stories have started coming in, memories from different people who each knew a part of his life. I’m working on putting them together, carefully, because these are their memories. My job is to listen and help give them a place.
For once, I’m writing a book where I don’t have all the answers.
Those who know me may want to mark that sentence on the calendar.
Usually, I’m explaining why a stone floor cracked or why somebody’s marble turned yellow. I’ve spent decades asking questions, examining evidence, and trying to figure out what happened.
Here, the questions are much more personal.
Who was the man who gave me this chance? What did he love? What would his friends tell me if we sat around a table long enough?
I don’t know whether everyone else needs to know those things.
I do.
Every morning, I get up and go about my day because of Charles. I write, work, spend time with Jeri, and find new ways to be busier than I intended. Somewhere in all that ordinary activity, I’ll remember that none of it was guaranteed.
Then I’ll read a story someone sent me about him, and I’ll learn something I didn’t know yesterday.
That means something to me. More than I can probably explain.
I wish I could have met him. I wish we could have sat down and talked. I suspect I would have had about four hundred questions, and he might have needed to tell me to take a breath.
I’ve been known to get carried away.
But I can meet him through the people who loved him. I can listen to what they remember, and I can help preserve those memories for his son, his family, and anyone who wants to know about Charles.
So yes, Fred is writing another book.
This one begins with a question I’ve wanted to ask for a long time:
“Tell me about Charles.”
And I’m grateful they are. Frederick M. Hueston Author, Heart Transplant Recipient, Publisher, The Transplant Report(10/05/26)
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