Three weeks after Columbus State University conducted a personalized graduation ceremony for him in an Atlanta hospital, 24-year-old Grant Martin finally received the heart transplant he has been waiting for since January.
Now, three weeks later, Martin remains in critical condition at the intensive care unit of Emory University Hospital as he fights a life-threatening battle with numerous post-surgery complications.
But in an interview Friday with the Ledger-Enquirer, his father, Phil, expressed gratitude for the uplifting support Grant and his family have received from folks in the Columbus area and beyond the Chattahoochee Valley — even from missionaries in Peru on a Zoom call.
“We have been humbled and overwhelmed,” said Phil, who updates Grant’s situation in blog posts at CaringBridge.org , where supporters send prayers. “We’ve had visitors from Columbus up here every day. They’re bringing us meals. They are spending time with us in fellowship, crying with us, praying with us, asking us if there’s anything we need, just trying to take care of everything.”
More than 130 churches have put Grant on their prayer list, Phil said.
“There have been moments where things seem darkest and I can’t even find the words to pray,” Phil said. “And in those moments, I really appreciate other people interceding for us in prayer. Even though Grant’s still on a ventilator, he’s semiconscious, and when I told him I really need you to be praying for yourself, he closed his eyes and he was moving his lips. So I think even Grant’s praying for himself, and that’s awesome.”
Through an account at GoFundMe.com , 110 donations have totaled $17,565 toward a goal of $20,000 as of Friday for the family’s expenses beyond what health insurance covers.
“Just knowing that people care that much that they’re willing to sacrifice from their own pocketbooks for somebody else says just a lot about people’s character,” Phil said. “… That money is going to help us pay for lodging so that we don’t have to make trips back and forth to Columbus every day and then some of the medicine that we will have to pay for, like his anti-rejection medicine when we do get him home one day.”
Not knowing when or whether that day will come produces a mix of hope and fear in Phil.
“Some people have described this journey as a roller coaster, and I get that analogy, but I also think it falls short,” he said. “There’s no way to put it into words, the few moments of just joy and then some of the darkest moments of my life.
“There have been days I’ve left the hospital not knowing if he was going to make it through to the next day, and that’s absolutely terrifying,” Phil continued. “But then we go into his room and sometimes he actually opens his eyes and makes eye contact with us, and so we cling to those happy moments, and we are grateful for just being able to even have any kind of human contact with him.”
And if he ever gets to contact the anonymous heart donor’s family after the six-month blackout period, Phil would like to tell them this:
“We have prayed for your family since the beginning and as you have mourned for your loved one. There are no amount of words that can ever truly express how grateful we are that your family has given my son a second chance at life.”
Grant, a 2018 Harris County High School graduate, earned a bachelor’s degree in English from CSU and became a certified educator after doing his student teaching at Northside High School in Muscogee County.
His mother, Amy is a second-grade teacher at Blanchard Elementary School, and Phil is a retired TSYS computer programmer teaching Bible at Calvary Christian School. They reside in Hamilton.
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