Writer reflects on travels, tragedy and his tireless advocacy of organ donation
In 1999, La Cañada resident Reg Green published his first book, “The Nicholas Effect,” with a mission in mind — to share the transformative story of how his son Nicholas’ death inspired both a personal and global mission to save lives.
The Green family was traveling in Italy in September 1994, when they were confronted by a carful of strangers who ordered them to stop. Immediately, Green knew something was wrong and attempted to flee. In the chaotic aftermath, he and wife Maggie learned their 7-year-old son, Nicholas, had been shot.
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Unable to recover from his injuries, Nicholas became brain dead, and the family had a difficult choice to make: Did they want to donate his organs? Without question, the couple decided yes.
News of the vacationing family’s tragedy, and a painful decision made by still-grieving parents, inspired massive media coverage in Italy and beyond. Today, 21 years later, Green is a tireless advocate for organ donation and still gets daily calls and emails requesting interviews on his story.
“It always surprises me, the longevity of this,” he said. “Twenty-one years ago, it was a small death in a place almost no one’s ever heard of, and yet it goes on and on.”
In addition to acting as spokesman for a highly worthy cause — Nicholas’ organs and tissues were donated to seven individuals, most of whom keep in touch — Green, now 87, keeps a busy calendar.
A retired business writer for the London Daily Telegraph and an avid reader and writer (including occasional guest columns for the Valley Sun), he hikes for nearly two hours daily near his foothills home. After that, it’s time to get down to work.
Collecting years of written musings, columns and photographs, Green recently published a second book, “87 and Still Wandering About,” that is now available through Amazon.
The book captures, through brief personal essays, the parts of Green’s life that exist within and in between an endless cycle of international trips and speaking engagements on behalf of organ donation, to which he has firmly committed the remainder of his life.
Musings on the majesty of the Great Outdoors as exemplified by the San Gabriel Mountains, the Swiss Alps or Mount Roraima, a mountaintop plateau in Venezuela, are peppered with quotes or sentiments that briefly lift the veil on Green’s exhaustive mental library.
In one essay, a morning hike in the Angeles National Forest evokes lines from Islamic poet and scholar Omar Khayyam: “Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night / Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight.”
Another, “The Bravest Christmas Gift of All,” tells the story of 22-year-old Florida woman Cora Hill, a cystic fibrosis patient who received a donated lung in 2007 only to end up on a ventilator two years later.
Deciding to be removed from life support, Hill expressed her wish to donate her kidneys in time for Christmas. Before she died, she was able to hold in her arms baby Taylor, the infant who would receive Hill’s gift of life.
Green hopes “87 and Still Wandering About” will appeal to readers of all stripes — people who, like him, have broad interests.
“I’m thinking of people like myself, who take pleasure in words and the ironies of life,” he said.
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
