BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) - As a fire engine followed by a caravan of honking well-wishers paraded by Tammy Evans’ Beckley home on the evening of April 8, Shannon Barbero stood on the sidewalk holding poster boards spelling out the words she wished she could share while locked in an embrace with her mother.
“Today is the day we celebrate your life,” Barbero wrote. “It’s your re-birthday. COVID-19 tried to keep us away but I am with you every day. I’m so honored to be your donor. I had a parade in your honor. Happy first liverversary. I love you. 4-8-19.”
It wasn’t quite the way the pair had hoped to spend the first anniversary of the day Evans, who suffered from NASH, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, received half of her daughter’s liver.
But COVID-19 has forced Evans and her husband Bob to quarantine themselves, even from close family, as protecting her new liver is essential.
“Mom can’t get even the common cold, let alone this,” Barbero says, explaining it is important, particularly within the first year of the transplant, that Evans stay healthy.
So not only were their plans for a girls’ trip scrapped, but the best friends, who found their way into each other’s hospital beds after the transplant, haven’t been within 6 feet in more than a month.
“We see each other at a distance,” says Barbero, who shops for her mom and stepdad, disinfecting their bags with Lysol before she drops them off. “She’ll stand at the door of the house and I’ll stand on the sidewalk and we’ll talk that way. And we FaceTime.”
Evans, who says she feels like a new person since the transplant, expected to spend to spend a quiet evening inside Wednesday.
But then the honking began.
“I was very surprised and overwhelmed,” she says of the caravan that included two firetrucks and 14 cars, each bearing its own sign. “How many people can say they had their own parade?
“That was awesome.”
And both women say they look forward to the day they can be together and celebrate as planned.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Shannon,” Evans says. “She’s my best friend.”
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