The legendary Highway 1 clings gracefully to the California coastline, where the edge of the country meets the blue unknown. This is where Dave and Jan Carr are spending today, in search of what tomorrow might look like.

2000 UPDATE

In the year 2000, the Enquirer brought readers the stories of many Tristate individuals and families. Some of these survived, thrived and experienced the depths and heights of human emotion. Today, in the first of a six-part series appearing in Metro, we revisit the Carrs of Union Township, Clermont County.

        The Union Township, Clermont County, couple think a lot about the future — what it will bring, and what it will take. Life and death are unpredictable things. And for the Carrs, both 36, the last three months have been an emotional wind tunnel.

        Their only child, 13-year-old son, Chance, drowned in September. Five weeks later, a 21-year-old person the Carrs don't know died somewhere, becoming an organ donor and the latest chapter in Mr. Carr's new life.

        Mr. Carr received kidney and pancreas transplants on Nov. 1, having suffered increasing complications in the time after Chance's body was found in a drainage pipe in Miami Township, swept there by flash flooding while skateboarding during a rainstorm.

        The Carrs decided to spend the Christmas holiday in a rented convertible in Southern California, alone together, driving up and down the legendary road.

        “We're just trying to be strong for each other,” Jan Carr said on Christmas Day from a Marriott hotel in Coronado, between Los Angeles and San Diego. “It's 75, the sun is shining. So so far, it's been good for us. But we miss Chance so much, we knew the two hardest days would be Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but we're trying.”
       

Seeking warmth
               In a recent interview in their candlelit living room, they smiled as they spoke about the lessons of time. On every wall, at every turn, are photos of Chance. Mrs. Carr made fresh coffee.

        They also spoke fondly of warmth. Mr. Carr is always cold. His circulation was ravaged by his illness. Diabetes led to kidney and pancreas failures, which led to the six-hour transplant surgery. It has left him frail, with very little body fat.

        “I hope that when we come back, he's stronger,” said Mrs. Carr, a fourth-grade teacher at Summerside Elementary School in Union Township. “I'm going back to work on the 8th. The trip, is just to kind of reconnect. I think David and I need to think about the future, what that's gonna look like. I just hope we don't hurt as much when we come back.”

        As she and her husband reflected on this year's events — the dreams and the nightmares - Mr. Carr huddled on the couch, a maroon blanket draped around his shoulders.

        The heat was turned up. It always is.
       

Transplant a gift
               “I don't nearly have the gloom and doom of throwing up constantly,” said Mr. Carr, who now takes 52 pills a day, in part to fight transplant rejection. “The pancreas and kidney are the two greatest gifts. It's my responsibility to take care of them. I was a pretty sick puppy.”

        He was on the transplant waiting list for a year and a half, during which he endured twice-weekly dialysis that left him vomiting for days on end.

        Then Chance died with his best friend, 13-year-old classmate Lincoln Schlueter. The boys were clinging to each other when their bodies were found. In the band photo in last year's Glen Este Middle School yearbook, the boys are sitting next to each other. Typical.

        “We miss Chance horribly,” Mrs. Carr said in a soft voice.
       

Heartbreak and hope
               The family reeled with heart break. Three weeks later, Ohio State University Medical Center called with news of a possible organ donor. The Carrs rushed up Interstate 71, only to learn the transplant wouldn't work. More heartbreak. They drove home.

        They hadn't the emotional strength to hand out candy on Halloween, leaving the neighborhood for the night.

        The next day, Nov. 1, brought a second call about a donor. It was 8 a.m. Mr. Carr had been at dialysis since 6.

        When the phone rang, “I just go into automatic pilot,” Ms. Carr explained. Clothes were packed ahead of time. The car always has enough gas to get to Columbus. They arrived at 11:30. Surgery began at 1. At 7, the whirlwind was over.

        When Mr. Carr slowly regained consciousness, he had completely forgotten Chance had died. It was a devastation revisited. Then he became convinced he got a new pancreas but not a kidney, and couldn't resign himself to a second surgery. He asked his wife how she could let the doctors do that, even though they hadn't.

        “My life was like a slide show,” Mr. Carr recalled. “Details of moments were very clear, but not anything in between.”

        They spent eight days at OSU Medical, then another month at a Columbus hotel, receiving intensive followup treatment each day. They spent many a meal at a place called Champps Americana, getting to know a server named Derek Rapkin, an Ohio State student with a kind heart who often worried aloud to the Carrs about exams. Mr. Rapkin, who is Jewish, arranged for a tree planted in Israel in memory of Chance.

        The Carrs came home Dec. 7.

        During a two-hour interview, the Carrs' phone rang. It was Derek. Knowing they were leaving for Arizona and California in two days, he wanted to meet them for dinner in Columbus.

        “He was such a sweetheart,” Mrs. Carr said as her husband nodded in agreement.

        For Mr. Carr, organ-rejection will be a top concern for several more months. There are currently 265 local residents awaiting transplants, including five for the kidney-pancreas double Mr. Carr received, according to LifeCenter,Greater Cincinnati's organ-donation program.

        “It's a gift of life,” said Mark Sommerville, assistant director at LifeCenter. “And it's a gift that few people can give. People think there's a lot of people dying every day, but there's only about 100 (locally each year) who can donate (healthy organs). They can still donate eyes and tissues, but not organs.”

        So people die awaiting transplants, and Mr. Carr, on disability from his job as a restaurant manager for three years, was nearly one.

        Even now, his complexion is sallow, he has little stamina and sometimes needs a cane to get around. But he keeps food down and for the first time since he was 16 is not a diabetic. His glucose level is now tested three times a week, not 10 times a day as it once was. His fingertips grew bloated and purple from the constant pinpricks from which blood samples were collected.

        The Carrs know only the age of the donor, but plan to write the family to show not just gratitude, but their sense of understanding. Parents, they know, shouldn't outlive their kids. It's not right.

        And it saddens them that Chance was unable to donate organs. His body was under water for at least six hours before it was recovered.

        “We probably won't have kids again, but I get 25 new ones every year,” said Mrs. Carr, a tireless optimist whose annual anxiety over fourth-grade proficiency test scores is forever tempered by the hard lessons of 2000.

        The Carrs have remained close to the Schlueters.

        “I just talked to Barb last night,” Mrs. Carr said.

        The Carrs occasionally finish each other's sentences. She paused, hunting for the right words to describe the support they've received from family, neighbors, friends, coworkers, even strangers, following Chance's death.

        Chief among them is Summerside Principal Eileen Murphy, Mrs. Carr's boss. To mention her is to see the Carrs glow.

        “If you have kids,” Ms. Murphy began, “she'd be the best teacher in the world, absolutely the best. I love them both dearly, as friends. This has brought such a sense of compassion to the school, a life lesson for the kids.”

        It's been a lesson for the Carrs as well.

        “There's no way to pay back for all the people who have helped us,” Mr. Carr said, “so pay it forward. Help somebody else. Pay it forward.”

        Mrs. Carr leaned forward, whispering, “That's our new favorite saying.”
       

2000 UPDATE

              

No Y2K fears, no hype for this New Year's
Elderly shun nursing homes
Books bought in pets' names
Christmas eclipse back in 307 years
UC president may leave
Teachers go online to help kids learn
Family loses home in fire
Renewed life helps ease loss
SAMPLES: Feuding on MainStrasse
Democrats slip in Ohio
Latin classes return
Local Digest
New use for 19th-century courthouse
Patton will address lawmakers
Schools chief has retirement plans
Scorekeeper's streak: 1,004 games
Firm protests possible loss of contract
New rules reduce pool of blood donors
Ohio past comes alive in new text