LIVONIA, Mich. —Aiden Saunders can’t believe it’s already been a year since he received a new heart and got a second chance at life.
“It’s pretty crazy,” he said. “It’s gone by so fast.”
Last winter, Aiden, then 13, was rushed to the hospital with acute heart failure. After emergency surgery that saved his life, he was placed on a heart transplant list. Astoundingly, a donor heart arrived within less than 24 hours and, after successful transplant surgery, Aiden spent the subsequent months regaining his strength and returning to his normal teen life, including his favorite sports.
The 14-year-old altar server at Sacred Heart Byzantine Catholic Parish has bounced back so well that one couldn’t guess what he went through just by looking at him.
“Many people from church call me a ‘walking miracle,’” Aiden said in an interview with Horizons. “It’s an answer to the prayers of lots of people.”
The teen and his parents attribute their ability to navigate their harrowing experience to their faith in God, the prayers of parishioners, family and friends, and the support of their pastor, Father Joseph Marquis.
“We have always believed in the power of prayer,” said Aiden’s mother, Lori Saunders. “It is the only thing that got us through. Without faith, we would not have survived.”
Lori said she and her husband, Bill, had a “huge prayer network going” that included monasteries, convents, family and friends all over the world. Strangers, and even friends who they knew had been non-believers, reached out and said they were praying for Aiden.
As pastor, Father Marquis tended to Aiden spiritually, calling and visiting him often in the hospital and anointing him.
“He would give me Eucharist and we would read Scripture together and pray,” Aiden recalled. “And, if I was sleeping, he would write lots of quotes from the Bible in my notebook and I would read them after I woke up.”
Father Marquis was also a support for Aiden’s parents.
“One particular time, Aiden had a bad day (in the hospital), and I broke down,” said Bill. Father Marquis took him to another room, where they spoke and helped calm him. The priest even brought a personal friend who had a lung transplant to visit Aiden in the hospital to show him that he could go through transplant surgery, too, Bill said.
The Saunders also drew strength from their religious devotions. They prayed daily the prayer to Blessed Solanus Casey, a Detroit-area Capuchin friar, for his intercession. A relic of Blessed Solanus, along with a brown scapular, were taped to Aiden’s leg during surgery. A few months after the heart transplant, Aiden and his family visited the shrine of Blessed Solanus nearby to give thanks for the graces received.
Aiden said he felt closer to God in his prayer life this past year.
“I felt like God was listening,” he said. However, his prayers have changed a little since his transplant.
“I thank God for my new heart and for the family who donated the heart. And I ask God, ‘Keep me in good health as long as you can,’” he said.
Last fall, Aiden developed a post-transplant cancer, not uncommon in transplant patients. He underwent treatment and got a pass from his oncologist last month.
For the Saunders, God’s hand was undoubtedly at work in the many incidents leading up to Aiden’s heart transplant, Bill told Horizons. While it was a “scary time… I had a very intense feeling of calm wash over me and I knew everything was going to be okay,” he said.
In addition to the miracle of receiving a donor heart so quickly, Aiden’s situation also “brought a lot of people, who never prayed, closer to God,” said Lori.
“It validated a lot of people in their faith,” Bill added.
Their family situation also moved people to acts of great kindness, including fundraisers and encouraging phone calls from world champions in waterskiing and wakeboarding, Aiden’s favorite sports.
Seeing one’s child recover from such severe sickness “changes one’s perspective on life,” said Bill. “It puts in perspective the value of faith, of life, the value of prayer and of your ongoing relationship with loved ones and with God.”
The challenge becomes “not getting caught up in the rapid currents of day-to-day life and the trappings that go along with that,” he said.
Like all families, however, the Saunders sometimes do get “caught up in the daily stresses” and forget about the graces they experienced, Lori said.
“I remind myself that we could have had a different outcome,” she said. “We should be more grateful.”
During those moments, when they do feel down and the tempting “Why me?” question arises, the Saunders help each other to see with the eyes of faith and to remember “all of the goodness that came out of (the situation),” said the mother of four. “If one soul goes to heaven because of what we went through, then it was worth it,” she said.
“Our faith was strong before, but this situation strengthened it ever more so,” she added. “Even though it was scary, God had this all along.”
Caption 1: The Saunders Family poses in front of a banner for the 5K fundraiser their friends organized for Aiden (far right) last April. (Photo courtesy of the Saunders Family)
As published in Horizons, March 3, 2019. Sign up for Horizons digital newsletter.