Just hours after she died in her mother’s arms, 11-year-old Takiya Holmes did something remarkable.
She saved six lives, according to the girl’s grandmother, Patsy Holmes. The youngest was 7 months old. The oldest was 67.
Seven of Takiya’s organs were donated for following her death on Tuesday–to a distant relative and to strangers she had never met. Someone received her heart, her pancreas, her lungs and her kidneys. Two recipients shared her liver.
At the end of a troubling week where three children died from the endless violence plaguing our city, Takiya gave us a reason to feel hopeful.
She never regained consciousness after being struck in the head by a stray bullet Saturday while sitting in a parked car with her mother, aunt and younger brother on the South Side. On Tuesday, her family allowed her to be removed from life support.
In the darkest of tragedies, Takiya is a candle beckoning us to a calmer place where we can take a deep breath and think more clearly about the future.
Through her gracious gifts, she has shown us the meaning of compassion, that often elusive trait which allows us to feel what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes.
Police: Suspect shot at 3 gang rivals, killing 11-year-old Takiya Holmes instead Jason Meisner, Jeremy Gorner, Elvia Malagon and William Lee
Antwan C. Jones was walking down the street Saturday evening when he spotted three gang rivals selling pot in Black Disciples territory and opened fire from across King Drive, according to police and prosecutors.
As happens too often in Chicago, Jones missed his target and instead wounded 11-year-old…
Antwan C. Jones was walking down the street Saturday evening when he spotted three gang rivals selling pot in Black Disciples territory and opened fire from across King Drive, according to police and prosecutors.
As happens too often in Chicago, Jones missed his target and instead wounded 11-year-old…
(Jason Meisner, Jeremy Gorner, Elvia Malagon and William Lee)
By giving others a chance at a life that was so brutally taken from her, she has implored us to be kinder to each other, better people than we thought we could be.
That’s a powerful message coming from a young girl who had so much yet to learn about life. She has made the ultimate sacrifice. The least we can do is listen.
For Takiya’s family, this doesn’t bring closure but it does offer some measure of peace.
"It brings us peace to know that she’s living in someone else," said Holmes, adding that Takiya’s mother and father eagerly agreed to the transplants. "The fact that she extended another person’s life and helped give them quality of life, we can live with that."
It took a lot of courage by Takiya’s family to share their child with someone else. Minorities, African-Americans in particular, are not quick to donate organs.
Though 20 percent of all transplant recipients are African-American—the overwhelming majority of them kidneys—blacks make up only 16 percent of all donors, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Third child dies from a shooting in Chicago in just two days Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas, Jason Meisner and Gregory Pratt
Kanari Gentry-Bowers’ family was determined not to let her go.
As the 12-year-old lay unconscious for days in a hospital bed, a bullet wound to her spine, they read to her: notes from friends, a homemade Valentine’s Day card from a boy Kanari liked, a school banner her principal brought over that…
Kanari Gentry-Bowers’ family was determined not to let her go.
As the 12-year-old lay unconscious for days in a hospital bed, a bullet wound to her spine, they read to her: notes from friends, a homemade Valentine’s Day card from a boy Kanari liked, a school banner her principal brought over that…
(Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas, Jason Meisner and Gregory Pratt)
But with blacks being more susceptible to heart disease, hypertension and diabetes, 30 percent of those waiting for organs are African-American.
There are lots of reasons blacks tend to shy away from being organ donors, namely poor health and costs. But one reason is most troubling.
Some African-Americans believe that the medical profession is more interested in harvesting their organs than helping patients get better. They fear that with others waiting for an organ, they will likely get subpar care in the hospital.
It is an unreasonable fear that is rooted in history. Remember the Tuskegee experiment of 1932, where the U.S. government tricked 399 black men into allowing syphilis to go untreated in order to study the long-term effects?
Takiya’s family chose to defy that stereotype. We should all be grateful.
Because of her family’s generosity, the 5th grader’s death will not to go in vain.
Darvece Monson, is one of the transplant receipients being kept alive with the young girl’s kidney. If Takiya could have made the decision herself, Monson said she thinks this is what she would have wanted.
Remembering 11-year-old Takiya Holmes
Naikeeia Williams gathers with other family members at a vigil Feb. 14, 2017, for her daughter Takiya Holmes, 11, who was shot over the weekend in the 6500 block of South King Drive in Parkway Gardens and died two days later. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
Naikeeia Williams gathers with other family members at a vigil Feb. 14, 2017, for her daughter Takiya Holmes, 11, who was shot over the weekend in the 6500 block of South King Drive in Parkway Gardens and died two days later. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
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"She was an exuberant, energetic child, so full of life," said Monson, 36, in a phone interview from her hospital bed at the University of Chicago Medicine.
"Overnight, my life has changed."
Long after Takiya’s smile and dimpled cheeks have faded from our memory, we shall remember this.
In the end, she gave all that she had to give. There could not have been a great gift.
dglanton@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @dahleeng
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