How could someone like that be stricken with cancer? Hadn’t he borne enough burdens?
I still feel that way. Like our whole community, I am mourning the loss of a lovable guy who gave back far more than he was ever given. Yet there’s a certain poetic justice in the fact that Tony Huesman’s heart never gave out. It would be hard to imagine a man with a bigger heart, a more oversized zest for life.
He received his heart transplant in 1978 at the Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, Calif., the first hospital in the nation to perform the procedure. At age 20, he became the hospital’s 153rd transplant patient.
When I first met Huesman in 2003, he was the second-longest surviving heart transplant patient in the United States and, most likely, the world. At the time of his death Sunday, at 51, Huesman had moved to the top of the list.
It was the stuff of Guinness , yet I was struck by what a regular guy he was. He loved the Reds and the Bengals, and fulfilled his promise as a sports-crazed youth with his long career at Tuffy Brooks Sporting Goods. He stayed close to a core group of buddies from Alter High School. He doted on his wife Carol, an intervention specialist at J.E. Prass Elementary School in Kettering, whom he married Aug. 2, 1997. “I love him,” she explained, “and I’d rather spend one day married to him than no days.”
Huesman’s longtime friend, Bob Yux, praised Carol as her husband’s soulmate and thanked her for prolonging his life through her devoted care. “Her spontaneity and enthusiasm complemented his perfectly,” Yux said. “He was never happier than when he married Carol and that happiness never dwindled, even near the end, when he was overcome by pain and frustration. When I visited them recently Carol said, 'I need to be less spontaneous.’ In a stronger voice than I had heard in a long time, Tony cried out, 'No!’ That’s one of the things I love about you.’”
Huesman’s pastor, the Rev. Gerald Haemmerle, praised his courage before some 400 mourners at a funeral Mass Thursday, Aug. 13, at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Kettering: “A heart transplant was a new and dangerous procedure at the time, but Tony didn’t give it a moment’s hesitation. He wanted to live.”
And live he did — a remarkable, full life, fueled by his love of family and friends, his passion for fighting heart disease. He founded the Huesman Heart Foundation with the goal of educating schoolchildren.
“When we think of Tony, we think of the heart,” Haemmerle said.
The funeral program noted, “An organ donor saved Tony’s life by giving him 31 more years to be son, husband and friend. This allowed him to touch the hearts of so many in our community. Please consider honoring Tony’s life by registering as an organ donor today at donatelifeohio.org.”
Yux asked mourners to stand up if Huesman had touched their lives.
The entire congregation rose to its feet.
“Tony often said, 'It doesn’t really matter when we die, how we die or why we die; what really matters though is how we live, and the hearts and souls of those we touch along the way,’” Yux concluded.
“Thanks to all of you who have helped Tony to matter more than any man I have ever known.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com.
About the Author