The Letter To None

I don't know your name. I'm not allowed to. Not yet, anyway. Maybe not ever.

But I need to write this down, even if you never read it. Even if it just goes into the void. Because two years have passed and I still don't know how to carry this gratitude. It's too big. It spills over. It keeps me up at night.

Let me tell you about my daughter.

Her name is Ritu. When she was six months old, I noticed bruises on her legs. Small ones, like watercolor stains. The pediatrician's face changed when she saw them, and I knew, the way you just know, that our lives were about to split in half. Before this moment. After.

Severe Aplastic Anemia. Her body had stopped making enough blood cells. Without a stem cell transplant, we were looking at months. Maybe weeks. The doctor said it matter of factly, the way you might comment on weather, but I watched my husband's hand grip the armrest until his knuckles went white.

They tested us first. Me, my husband, our siblings. None of us matched. You need six markers to align perfectly, like finding someone who dreams in the exact same language. Family usually has the best shot, but not us. Not this time.

"There's a registry," they said. "Ten million potential donors."

Ten million. Can you imagine? Ten million people who'd checked a box somewhere, someday, that said yes, I'll help if I'm needed. That felt like enough. That felt like safety.

But they searched for three months, and found one match.

One.

You.

Out of ten million people on this planet, only you. Your cells, your genetic code, your specific cellular signature. It was the only one that could save her.

Do you ever think about the day you registered? I think about it constantly. I've invented a hundred versions of it in my head. Maybe you were at a college campus drive. Maybe a friend dragged you along. Maybe you were killing time at a mall and saw the table and thought, why not?

Did you think you'd ever actually get called? Because I've learned that most donors never do. Ten million people waiting, and most of them will wait forever. You could have been one of those people who checked a box and forgot about it. Went on with your life. And no one would have blamed you.

But then your phone rang.

What did that feel like? Did your heart drop? Did you hesitate? Did you think about saying no?

Because you could have. You could have said I'm sorry, bad timing or I have kids of my own or I'm scared or any of a thousand legitimate reasons. And legally, medically, morally, you would have been within your rights.

But you said yes.

We spent eight months in that hospital. Section C, Room 318. I can still smell it if I close my eyes. That specific combination of antiseptic and anxiety and cafeteria food. Ritu turned one there. We hung streamers and brought a tiny cake and she laughed, completely unaware that her body was trying to kill her.

I met a mother in the hallway once. She'd been sleeping on a mat beside her son's bed for three weeks. Her hair was unwashed. Her eyes were hollow. She said, "You'll get used to it."

I thought, No way. Not us. We're not going to be here that long.

Famous last words.

The day of the transplant, they brought your stem cells in a bag. This tiny, ordinary looking bag, like a juice box. And I remember thinking, That's it? That's what everything hangs on? It looked so unremarkable for something that meant the difference between my daughter living and dying.

They hung it on an IV pole. Let gravity do its work. Your cells dripping into my baby girl's veins, one drop at a time.

And then we waited.

God, the waiting. Every fever could mean rejection. Every rash could be the beginning of the end. The doctors speak in percentages and statistics, but when it's your kid, there are no percentages. There's only yes or no. Life or death. She makes it or she doesn't.

Your cells found their way home inside her. They settled in. They started building what her body couldn't. Blood cells, immune function, life.

It worked.

Two years later, and Ritu is three and a half. She starts preschool next month. She's obsessed with fireflies and only wears purple clothes. She counts everything. "Five crackers, Mama. Three birds. Two dogs." The whole world is numbers to her, and she hasn't learned yet that some things can't be counted.

Like how many times I think about you. Like how many different ways I've tried to say thank you in my head.

The registry sends you updates. I know that much. Clinical updates. "Patient is doing well. Two-year milestone reached. Prognosis excellent."

But they don't tell you this.

She belly laughs when she's tickled. She demands that we read the same book seventeen times in a row. She says "I love you" like it's a complete sentence, period, nothing else needed. She asks about you sometimes.

She calls you "Uncle."

"Tell me about Uncle," she says at bedtime, and what am I supposed to say? How do I explain you to her?

I tell her that somewhere in the world is someone incredibly kind who gave a gift that changed everything. Someone who proves that strangers can love each other. Someone who is the reason she gets to be here, catching fireflies, learning to read, growing up.

One day, maybe when she's older, if you both agree, you might meet. I imagine that moment obsessively. What would I even say to you? How do you stand face to face with someone who gave your child everything?

I'd probably just cry. Honestly. I'd probably just stand there and cry and try to form words and fail completely.

Because how do you thank someone for your daughter's laughter? For the weight of her hand in yours? For Saturday morning pancakes and bedtime stories and every single ordinary, extraordinary moment you almost didn't get?

You didn't just save her life. You saved mine. You saved my marriage, because I don't know if we would have survived losing her. You saved my ability to breathe, to sleep, to believe the world is more good than cruel.

Your yes echoes in every moment of her life.

Every time she learns something new. Every time she falls down and gets back up. Every birthday from here until forever. Every milestone, every heartbreak, every triumph. You made all of it possible.

She's learning to write her letters now. She can do five so far: R-I-T-U-U.

I asked her about that last one. "That's not in your name, baby."

She looked at me like I was being very silly. "That's for Uncle, Mama. U is for Uncle. The one who helped me."

Yes, you said you will help.

Yes, you promised you would show up.

Yes, even for a stranger's child.

Yes, even when it's hard.

That one, yes, became her U. The letter she writes for her uncle, her hero.

I don't know if you have kids. I don't know what you had to rearrange in your life to donate. I don't know if it hurt, or if you were scared, or if you told everyone or kept it quiet like a secret.

But I know this. You are the reason my daughter is alive.

You are the reason I get to watch her grow up.

You are the reason our family didn't shatter into a million pieces.

They said one in ten million. Those were the odds.

But you weren't just a statistic to us. You were the miracle we almost didn't get. You were the stranger who became the most important person in our lives without ever meeting us.

Her name is Ritu. She's three and a half years old. And she's absolutely, impossibly, beautifully alive.

She's here because you exist.

There will never be enough ways to say thank you. But I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying.