The family of Brendan Costello gathered in the hospital half-light. He had overcome so much in life, but the profound damage to his brain meant he would never again be Brendan. It was time.
He had spent four months enduring three surgeries and a lengthy rehab after infections further destabilized his damaged spine. He had returned to his apartment on the Upper West Side in late December to begin reclaiming the life he had put on hold – only to go into cardiac arrest three weeks later and lose consciousness forever.
His younger sister, Darlene, stayed by him in the intensive care unit at Mount Sinai Morningside hospital. She made sure that his favorite music streamed nonstop from the portable speaker propped near his bed. The gravelly revelations of Tom Waits. The “ah um” cool of Charles Mingus. The knowing chuckle of New Orleans jazz.
The music captured Brendan: the dark-humored Irish fatalism flecked with hope and wonder. And yes, he used a wheelchair, but woe to anyone who suggested this somehow defined the man.
After tests confirmed no chance of regaining consciousness, a wrenching decision was made. Brendan’s ventilator would be removed at 1 p.m. on Sunday, January 19, five days after his collapse. He was 55.
Now it was Sunday, heavy and gray with dread. Several of Brendan’s closest relatives ringed his bed, including his sister and the aunt and uncle who had raised him. Waits growled, Mingus aahed, the clock ticked.
Then, just two minutes before the appointed hour, a nurse stepped into the moment to say that Ms. Costello had a phone call.
What? A phone call. You have to take it. You HAVE to take it.
The flustered sister left her brother’s room and took the call. Family members watching from a short distance saw her listening, saw her arguing, saw her face contort in disbelief.
Time paused, as all the emotional and spiritual girding to say goodbye gave way to a realization: Of course. Their beloved Brendan – witty, contrarian, compassionate and not-yet-dead Brendan – had other plans.
Of course.
The music played on, the darkness deepening around the bed. And then, just moments before his own life support was to be withdrawn, Brendan received the call that would change everything: his beloved sister had a phone call, asking him to donate one of his kidneys to a man in dire need, a transplant surgeon named Dr. Burcescu.
The rest is history.
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