Michael Johnson’s Heart

It was Michael Johnson’s heart, that’s all I knew. Michael Johnson from York, who died in a car accident on 23 June 2012.

 

After the operation I tried to look him up on the internet, but it’s such a common name I couldn’t find any trace of him, just one paragraph about the accident in the local paper.  

 

I thought about him a lot, of course. Every time I lay asleep at night, listening to my heart beating. His heart beating.

 

I didn’t have much else to do, I was laid up in bed for weeks afterwards, under strict instructions not to ‘get excited’. Luckily I live in England, where excitement is a foreign country.

 

I couldn’t wait to get out of the door and go for a walk in the last remnants of summer sun. The weather was on my side, the summer hanging around like a stray dog outside a butchers. Then one day I could wait no more and just took off, a stroll to the corner shop, which became a walk around the local park. After that I was off, out and about, walking for miles every day, more than I’d ever walked before.

 

This may not seem so strange. As Dave, one of the runners I’ve met recently has a habit of saying, “Have legs, will travel.”  But I was always the opposite. “Have arse, will sit and watch TV.” I never went for a walk, walking is the reason the car had to be invented, it’s time consuming, dull, pointless. At least that’s what I had always thought.

 

And as for running…

 

I can’t say what possessed me, that morning, to put on my trainers and take off, jogging down the street. I had never run in all my life, but there I was, tearing down the street, for a while at least, until I slowed down to a pace I might survive. I didn’t run far, at least not what I’d call far now, maybe just over a mile, but I was exhausted, gasping for breath, thinking I was about to have another heart attack.  I felt I was about to collapse on the ground and never get up again.

 

I was also exhilarated. I had never felt so free, so alive.

 

In the spate of a few months I changed, from overweight heart victim to dedicated runner. I went out every day, even when it was raining, even when the park was full of dodgy looking youths, or snappy little dogs.

 

 

It’s a common reaction when you get a new heart from an athletic donor. People find themselves becoming runners, swimmers, or jumpers after the operation.

 

Dave told me, in one of our numerous discussions on the subject, that there’s a brain in the heart, not a full brain, but a few cells that pump messages back and forth to the brain and seem to have some role in ensuring that the heart keeps beating. It’s as if the imported brain in my new heart is sitting there going ‘Let’s go for a run, I’m bored’, and the main brain gets pestered into agreeing, like a tired housewife giving into the nagging of her kids.

 

Dave’s a nag too. He’s the one who’s persuaded the entire running club to donate their organs, I never even thought of it. I’ve signed away my heart now, as he requested, well, Michael’s heart I suppose. Dave’s sister had a kidney transplant, you see. It didn’t work out, unfortunately, she’s dead now, but she would have survived if there’d been another donor. Someone fit, health, say from a running club.

 

Anyway, I’m ahead of myself, confusing the starting tape for the finish line.  

 

I ran regularly for several months, getting up to 10k in a highly respectable time. Then, on a whim, I put in for the York marathon. It seemed the perfect event, not as popular as the London or other major-city marathons, and in September, when I’d have had a whole spring and summer to train, with plenty of half marathons and other runs I could take part in, depending on how my training was going.

 

Of course, the main reason for choosing York was that it was where Michael was from. I’d be taking his heart home. Shortly before the event I had an idea: I put an ad in the local paper, saying who I was and asking for anyone who knew Michael to get in touch.

 

His sister phoned the next day. We didn’t say much, she seemed a bit overwhelmed by things. We arranged to meet after the race.

 

xxx

 

It was an emotional race, for a thousand reasons, not least of which was knowing that I’d be meeting Michael Johnson’s sister later that day. I was unprepared for the crowds. In those days I’d only done a few local fun runs,10ks and half marathons, I hadn’t anticipated the crowds you get for a full marathon. Tens of thousands of people, there to see loved ones, work colleagues, or just for the event itself – the people dressed as clowns, dinosaurs, fridges. You simply would not believe the humiliation of being overtaken by a fridge, though I’m happy to report I passed him a few miles later. I assume it’s a him, dressing up as a refridgerator and running 26 miles is a very male thing to do.

 

This was my first marathon and my first time running the full 26 miles. In training the most I’d got up to was 20 miles. Consequently I wasn’t worrying about time, just simply getting one foot in front of the other and making sure I took on enough water. I tried not to think, not to dwell on the fact that I was a heart attack victim and that I  was relying on a total strangers heart to get me round.

 

My time was ghastly, I won’t repeat it here, I’ve since knocked nearly an hour off, but the exhilaration at finishing is something I could never describe. The second you pass through that lovely big finish line you let your body relax. It’s only then you notice that your big toe is throbbing, that all your limbs ache and that you were actually terrified you’d drop dead halfway through the race.

 

At the finish line a woman approached me. “You’re Terrence,” she said. I nodded, still gasping for breath. “I’m Michael’s sister. I know we’re supposed to be meeting later, but I wanted to see you cross the finish line. You know.” She pointed to my heart.

 

“How did you know it was me?”

 

“I got your number off the race officials.” She pointed to my heart again, this time at the number covering it.

 

“It was Michael’s ambition to do the York Marathon. It’s all he talked about. He was mad keen on exercise, ever since he recovered from the car accident.”

 

“Recovered?” I said, surprised.

 

She looked startled for a moment, as if surprised by her own words, then laughed. “I suppose I’ll have to start calling it his first car accident. It was when he was 18, left him crippled. It took him seven years before he could walk again.”

 

“All that effort, and then he died. Wasted.”

 

“Not wasted,” I said. I pointed to my heart.