Perfect Match

by Gary Sledge

Every Christmas the giant tree in Rockefeller Center sparkles with thousands of lights. From the beginning, when construction workers raised the first one during the depths of the Depression, it has been a symbol of hope. Diana Abad, like most Americans, loved that tree.

In 1999, however, Diana was writing her will. The 33-year-old woman from Staten Island, New York, was diagnosed with leukemia and wanted to put her things in order. Doctors told her she had nine months to live.

Her slim chance for survival lay in finding a bone marrow donor. The most likely source for a match is always among relatives -- but her family was tested and there was none.

Then one day in February 2000, she got a call from the hospital saying that out of the four million people enrolled in the National Marrow Donor Program Registry, there was only one match. The potential donor was thinking about it. In March the donor agreed, and the transplant procedure was scheduled for March 27.

On that day, a doctor came in with the marrow in a bag, and Diana remembers him saying: "This is it. If it doesn't graft within four to six hours, nothing will bring you back." Diana asked a priest to give her last rites.

Almost immediately after the two-hour procedure, she felt stronger. Doctors told her it looked like the graft had taken.

Donors are anonymous, but when she was better, Diana sent a note through the Registry: "You don't know the joy that I am experiencing," she wrote. "I hope that one day we can meet and I can thank you in person."

It was several months before the donor replied. At first he didn't even give his name. He was 34-year-old David Mason, and he lived in Dedham, Massachusetts. But eventually the two exchanged phone numbers and began to talk.

Then unexpectedly and unannounced, he turned up at her door in Englishtown, New Jersey, on December 23. She says it was love at first sight. He says he didn't feel it until they met the second time.

That meeting began a long-distance romance that culminated under the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center in December 2004. That's where David proposed to Diana. She, of course, said yes.