Angela Burghard

Angela and her 97 year old kidney.

In 1982, at the age of 33, she received a kidney from her 60 year old German father. “My dad was so brave. Without being able to speak a word of English he entrusted himself to the Canadian medical team . . . My dad, he gave me one of his kidneys. Wow, how often have I said these seemingly simple words over the years, but no words could ever give justice to the full extent and meaning of the gift given”. 

She is now 70 years old. No one could have known how many years of life would be enabled and enriched for Angela because of this gift, so magnanimously given. For her father, it was “selbstverstaendlich” – taken for granted – that he would help his daughter. He was proud to his last days that “the old German kidney”, as he called it, was keeping up the cultural tradition of being well-engineered.