Rose Parade honors son’s gift of organs

SUNNYSIDE, Wash. – Parents love talking about their kids. John and Daria Miller are no exception.

They talk about BJ’s sports, girlfriends and dreams. They’ve always talked about him, even after he died in a car crash about a year ago. It makes them feel better.

But now they also speak about BJ’s corneas, liver, pancreas and kidneys – organs that live on, giving life to five others.

“Our son’s still alive,” John Miller said.

Those donations have earned BJ’s memory a place in the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day in Pasadena, Calif., and his parents another chance to talk about their only child to a national audience.

BJ will be one of 34 organ donors featured in floragraphs – portraits painted with flower and plant parts – on a parade float honoring organ donation.

“He was a star in his life and a star in his passing,” said Julie Monica, a spokeswoman for Living Legacy, an educational arm of LifeCenter Northwest, a Seattle-based organ procurement agency that arranged the donation of BJ’s organs.

He was popular, likable and captain of the Sunnyside High School football team. He was an above-average student, and working at a clothing store.

Since BJ’s death on Oct. 12, 2007 – three days short of his 19th birthday – the Millers have found purpose in the ashes of their tragedy by becoming vocal advocates for organ donation.

They speak to community groups, schools and the news media.

“We preach organ donation,” John Miller said. “Boy, oh, boy, we preach organ donation.”

BJ was returning home from visiting a friend in the Tri-Cities on that October day. He had just passed a semitruck on Interstate 82 east of Prosser about 11 a.m. when he lost control and rolled his 1999 Ford pickup.

He suffered severe head injuries and never regained consciousness. He was taken to Prosser Memorial Hospital, then airlifted to Harborview Medical Center. Doctors tried surgery, but warned his parents that his chances were slim.

That’s when counselors from LifeCenter Northwest asked them to consider donating his organs.

“John said ‘Yes,’ right away,” Daria recalled. She needed more persuasion.

That’s when her husband told her about watching a football game on television with BJ when he was about 17. During a commercial, BJ switched to a documentary about organ donation.

When the commercial was over, the young man said he wanted to sign up as an organ donor, something his father had suggested earlier.

“You know, dad, you’re right,” John Miller recalls his son saying.

The story helped convince Daria. At 10 a.m. the next day, doctors turned off the life support systems. BJ died 18 minutes later, as his mother held him. His body was then whisked into surgery.

The Millers stayed the night in a hotel and drove home the next day. When she got around to checking phone messages, she learned that BJ’s organs were donated to five others, three of them in life-saving operations.

The Millers played that message at their son’s funeral, which drew 1,500 people to the gymnasium at Sunnyside St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

Living Legacy is paying for two trips to Pasadena for the couple. Recently, they were there to design their son’s floragraph. Crushed white rice serves as the young man’s teeth while crushed coffee beans stand in for his curly hair.

The Millers will return to Pasadena to watch the parade from the grandstands on Jan. 1.