Around the time I was born, my mother contracted a rare auto-immune disease. Unlike with HIV, her immune system is overcharged, and begins picking fights with her healthy organs. She was sick most of my life and it was often that a stranger would meet me after school, and say “three apples,” the code word that my mother would tell her substitute when she was too weak to pick me up herself.

About the time I was 18, my mother grew progressively worse. Her body had devoured most of her liver, leaving only scar tissue, that didn’t act as much of a filter to keep the bile from going to her brain. While she had been on a transplant waiting list for about 10 years, the beeper that the hospital provided us never sounded. As is true with most teenagers, it was a great time of change for me, as I would be heading to college soon about to embark upon independence.

Ten days before I was to move into the dorms, I woke up to my mother violently screaming and vomiting, eventually falling into a coma. Though she was now “upgraded” to the critical list, a month passed while she was in and out of consciousness waiting for a transplant. I remember thinking to myself that I was 18 years old and all I wanted so badly was to begin adulthood on a positive note. I felt sorry for myself as I had to buy my own dorm and school supplies, and I felt lonely too, knowing that no one would be there to give me a loving kiss as they left me in front of Rubin Hall, my home for the next four year.

Elsewhere in New York, another 18 year old would also experience a great change in her life. Nicole was a soccer player (or so I heard), who loved chocolate and her dog. She studied art at SUNY-Albany, and that’s where a drunk driver killed her one night. Her parents always tell us how generous and kind she was, but we already knew it on a level that most people do not ever come in contact with. Nicole filled out her donor card, and gave what was left of her after the accident. My mother was the lucky recipient of a new liver, and we were the lucky recipients of a new mom.

While it’s rather unorthodox to contact a donor’s family, my mother needed to thank them for their gift, and offer her condolences as well. Nicole’s family embraced my mom as though she was a member of their family and they now speak on the phone regularly and exchange Christmas cards. She tells them about my progress in university and beyond, and confesses that she’s developed a voracious appetite for chocolate bars since the operation. My mom says that she has an 18 year old alive inside of her, and I think Nicole’s parents like to believe that too.

Kindness comes in so many shapes, sizes, colors, and packages. Nicole’s gift to my mom has left a mark on the lives of so many. When I think of soul graffiti I can’t remove Nicole’s image from my thoughts and I wish I could thank her for her conscious act that brought me a loving kiss when I finally left college and so many more since.