Henrietta "Hetty" ELizabeth Niers Gaeb, BHS 1965Published in The Seattle Times from December 17 to December 18, 2009
Hetty E. GAEB August 17, 1947 ~ December13, 2009 In loving memory of a wonderful mother, grandmother & friend. Services are Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. at Normandy Park United Church of Christ, 19247 1st Avenue S, Seattle, WA 98148.
Selfless act interrupts one life to save another's
By Mary SwiftSeattle P-I COLUMNIST, April 29, 2007
On Friday, SeaTac's Hetty Gaeb walked into her office at the Alaska Airlines Seattle reservations center in Kent with an angel beside her: Federal Way's Carolyn Jenkins. Jenkins smiled shyly, but if you wanted to see sheer delight in being alive, Hetty Gaeb was it. She laughed; she cried. She hugged co-workers, her blue eyes dancing with excitement. She'd turned 60 on April 17. But she already had the best present: Jenkins' left kidney.
Just call that a gift from out of the blue.
The women were co-workers at Alaska, but not really close. Still, employees there are a family. They all knew that Gaeb, who was battling kidney disease, had waited for a kidney transplant for four years and had been on dialysis for three. By last summer, her health was in serious decline and her co-workers knew it. When she wasn't working, she was getting dialysis. She was so drained, whatever spare time she had she spent resting.
"It just seemed like somebody needed to do something," Jenkins said. And so she did. One night Jenkins went to visit Gaeb. "I want to give you a kidney," she said. "I'm being tested." And there the two women stood, fingers crossed, as they waited to see if a transplant was possible. Meanwhile, Jenkins, 55, readied herself for early retirement. One night, co-workers feted her at Poppa's Pub in Kent. That same day, she got the news -- and she broke it to Gaeb at the party: She was "a perfect match."
On March 15, doctors at Swedish Medical Center removed Jenkins' kidney and transplanted it into Gaeb. Three days later, Jenkins left the hospital. Gaeb went home two days after that. But before Jenkins left, Gaeb's two sons paid her a visit. "Thank you for saving our mother's life," they told her.
On Friday, Gaeb announced: "This is my guardian angel. I turned 60 and got a second chance at life. That's all I can say. It's an amazing journey. I feel fabulous." Gaeb, who expects to go back to work in July, said Jenkins' gift frees her from dialysis. That gives her 17 more hours of free time each week, she said, time that she can spend with a grandchild.
What kind of a person voluntarily interrupts her own life to save someone else's? How was it that Jenkins didn't do what so many of us do each day -- get so involved in our own lives, problems and activities that we turn our backs and hope someone else will take action? Maybe it's what makes an angel. Co-workers watching the two women on Friday said that what Jenkins did was perfectly in character. "Everybody was saying this is so much like Carolyn," Linda Wortman said. "It's just the kind of person she is. And the fact she'd just started her retirement and she chose to spend the first few months making this happen is so incredible. And she isn't the kind that would look for attention for doing it."
Normally, Jenkins said, that would be true. In this case, she didn't mind. "It was inconvenient. But it feels so good to give. I want other people to realize they can do it too."
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