“In sickness and in health,” is just one of the many vows you make when you tie the knot. This husband knew only too well what that vow meant when he found out his wife was sick. He knew he had to do everything he possibly could to help her, and this image of him in Target quickly went viral.
One Simple Tweet
On December 22, 2018, Lilit Marcus shared a photo with her followers on Twitter captioned, “Here is a photo I took at my Target yesterday and can’t stop thinking about.” It was a photo of a man wearing a sign on his back which explained that he needed a kidney for his wife, along with her blood type. The world was shaken when they realized this loving husband was probably walking everywhere with the sign on his back, in the hopes someone might donate their kidney to his wife.
Raymond Thompson
The man in the photo was later discovered to be Raymond Thompson, who had met his wife back in 2000. Back in 2016, they received the heartbreaking news that she had kidney disease. In order to try and find her a suitable donor, Raymond had been wearing the sign when going about his daily chores – including shopping at Target! People were quick to respond to the Tweet, with plenty of people kindly offering Raymond’s wife their kidney.
Not The First
However, this isn’t the first time that people have tried to find a donor in such a clever way. Robert Leibowitz wore a t-shirt asking for a kidney donor while walking around Disney World. The post was shared on Facebook and racked up thousands of shares and comments. When Lilit Marcus’ tweet about Raymond Thompson went viral, plenty of people also jumped on the thread to share their own images of people asking for kidney donations.
Donating an organ is such an incredible thing to do and, as this story shows, it’s not done often enough. Hopefully, Raymond and his wife found a suitable donor through that simple sign on his back.