In December 2003, 16-month-old Quentin Dachis drowned while his family was on vacation in Palm Springs, CA. His parents said, “He was a baby that made hearts melt.”

While Quentin was on life support in the hospital, his mother Nina took a break at the Ronald McDonald house. This was a familiar setting, as she volunteered at the local Ronald McDonald house back home in Minnesota. In the shuttle back to the hospital, Nina met a one-year-old Mexican girl in desperate need of a new liver. The day after Christmas, that same girl received Quentin’s liver. Nina said, “You know, we’re Jewish and I think it’s amazing that our little Jewish boy saved this little Catholic girl on Christmas. We could not be from more different situations, but this miracle brought us together.”

In a journal his father kept during the dark hours of Quentin’s passing, he finished by writing this brief poem:

We love you with all our hearts.
Be at peace, bucko,
You have done so much good with your life.