Blevian Moore said just weeks before her son was killed in a single-vehicle car crash, he had told her he wanted to do something special for the staff at Fresenius Kidney Care in Olympia Fields.
When Richard Moore was 19 suffering from kidney failure, he received kidney dialysis treatment there for more than a year before receiving a new kidney, she said.
Her son, she said, was “somebody who gave love to each and every person he touched,” and would come by the Fresenius center to update staff on his progress.
The family brought $25 gift cards and skin care products for employees at the kidney center.
“It’s about spreading his love, and we couldn’t think of a better time to do that than on Valentine’s Day,” his mother said.
Along with being a kidney recipient, Richard Moore became an organ donor, and she said “two people can see through his eyes right now.”
Moore died last Nov. 25 in a single-car crash at the intersection of Western Avenue and Joe Orr Road. He was 23.
His sister, Ravetta Moore, said her brother “was an outstanding person.”
“I will always love him, he will always be in my heart,” she said.
He began fighting chronic kidney disease at 17 and by 19, while attending Jackson State University in Mississippi, he slipped into full kidney failure that forced him to return home, according to his family.
Moore worked as a janitor at Blackhawk Primary Center in Park Forest, and after school mentored children in English and math. He had aspirations of becoming a teacher, according to his family.
Letters from students he tutored after his death were turned over to Moore’s family.
While Richard was undergoing dialysis, the family learned a kidney from a 2-year-old who had died was available, but because Richard was 6 feet, 6 inches tall, it was determined he would need both of the child’s kidneys to have full function, his mother said.
She said he had the donated kidneys a little more than a year before the car accident, but “it was a great year and a half, he was so vibrant.”
“He lived his best life during that time,” she said.
While he received dialysis at Fresenius, Richard Moore was beloved by staff, said Helena Hardin, a nurse at the Olympia Fields center.
“We enjoyed every time he came in for dialysis,” Hardin said. “There are certain people you get attached to and he was one of them.”
With the family’s gifts, “he’s showing us that he loved us,” Hardin said.
Jack Lynch, former senior adviser for Gift of Hope Organ & Tissue Donor Network, said organ recipients face a “long, rigorous road of waiting.”
He was involved in the organization for more than 35 years and during that time “we’ve only made a small dent in the volume of patients waiting.”
He said depending on the organ, the average wait can be seven years.
Trinette Britt-Johnson, supervisor for Rich Township, said she has been on a waiting list for a year for a new kidney and has only 5% kidney function.
“I’m tired, I’m weak,” she said. “The good thing is I have the support of friends and family.”
Moore’s family said by bringing the gifts to Fresenius staff, they hope to raise awareness of the need for organ donors, and Lynch said he hoped media coverage would aid in that effort.
“It did what we wanted it to do,” he said. “Someone’s going to hear, read and then act.”
