Money Pours in for Stranger Who Answered Mom's Unusual Plea for Kidney
Father of three Josh Dall-Leighton is donating his kidney to another mother after seeing her sign in a windshield. (Photo: Ashley Dall-Leighton/Facebook)
A father agreed to donate his kidney after seeing another mother’s plea on her car window, and now strangers are offering their support for his good deed on a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $37,000.
Christine Royles was diagnosed with lupus in 2013 and learned shortly thereafter that she would need a kidney transplant. “The doctor said it would be an average of two years on the transplant list, and I didn’t want to wait that long. I wanted to choose my own path and advertise my need,” she tells Yahoo Parenting.
So in November, the Maine mother wrote a sign on the back of her windshield. “I saw an article about another man who held up a sign on the side of the road that said, ‘my wife needs a kidney,’ and that gave me the idea,” she says. Her sign, which included her phone number, read: My 2-year-old son needs a healthy mom! Looking for a type O blood kidney! I am 23 on dialysis. Call or text.”
The sign Christine Royles wrote in her car window caught the attention of Josh and Ashley Dall-Leighton. (Photo: AP Photo/WMTW-TV, Kevyn Fowler)
Royles says her 2-year-old son Talan was the inspiration behind her urgent search. “We can’t go on trips because I need my dialysis. We can’t stay out late because I have to come home to do dialysis,” she says. “There’s a lot more I’ll be able to do for Talan when I’m healthy.”
The mention of the little boy is also what caught the attention of Josh and Ashley Dall-Leighton. “The message on the windshield changed every week, and I wondered if it hadn’t mentioned her son, if it would have caught my eye that day,” Ashley Dall-Leighton, who has 10-month-old twin boys and a 5-year-old son, tells Yahoo Parenting. After spotting the note, she pointed it out to her husband. “I said something like ‘this is so said,’ and read it to him.’”
Josh’s reaction was immediate, and definitive. “I just looked at my wife and said please text or call the number. I need to try and help her out, no child should lose their mother,” he tells Yahoo Parenting. “I want to show my sons that there are good people in the world and that if people need help, you should help them if you can.”
Ashley says she was hesitant at first. “I said, ‘what if you’re a match? It’s a big operation. What about our family?’ but he just said, ‘This is what I need to do,’” she says. “He never once hesitated.”
“How can I preach to my sons about helping people and being kind and being a good person if I never did anything myself?” Josh says.
Christine Royles, here with her 2-year-old son Talan, connected with her kidney donor after writing a message on her car window. (Photo: Christine Royles/Facebook)
Six weeks ago, Josh learned he was a match for Royles. The 30-year-old corrections officer will undergo surgery to donate his kidney in May. Ashley says part of what is driving her husband’s generosity is a desire to give another parent a healthy family. “We went through a lot to get pregnant with our twins and when we did it was a tough pregnancy,” she says. “I started having complications at 19 weeks, and delivered my boys at 29 weeks. One of our sons has a brain condition and was given a pretty bad prognosis, but now he is saying mama, dada, and defying the odds. Josh feels he’s been given so much that he wants to give back to change someone else’s life the way his has been changed.”
Though this is his greatest good deed, Ashley says Josh is always someone to try and improve the lives of others. “He’s the type of guy who always wants to help out. Once at the grocery store he took a bunch of employment applications to bring to the homeless guy down the street to help him get a job,” she says. “I’m proud of him.”
Royles says she is still amazed that her sign worked. “I cried,” she says. “I honestly haven’t even had a chance to thank him yet because I don’t know what to say. I’m still in shock.”
For both Royles and the Dall-Leightons, the financial burden of this gift is huge. Both Royles and Josh will have to take up to six weeks of unpaid leave from their jobs. A friend of the Dall-Leightons created a GoFundMe page to help ease the cost of Josh’s gift. “Let’s show Josh how much support he has and how many people believe [in] him as he gives the greatest gift of all…: LIFE!” The fundraising goal for the site was $6,000. At the time of this writing, it has raised $37,686.
Royles, a waitress, also has a GoFundMe page, with a goal of $25,000. The hope, the site explains, “is to raise enough money to help pay off some of [Royles’] medicals bills and pay for the medications she needs to take after transplantation, which can be upwards of $5,000 a month. This will take some stress off of this young growing family.”
Ashley says she and Josh are overwhelmed by the outpouring of financial support. “The generosity people are seeing in him, they just want to pay it forward,” she says. “These people are helping the community see that even one person can make a difference in the world.”
And that’s just the lesson Josh wants out there, Ashley says. “His goal is to be sure that her young boy has a mother, and to teach our boys to give back and help others,” she says. “I don’t think even my 5-year-old totally understands what’s happening. But someday these kids will know what an amazing thing their father did.
