by CHRISTINE MAGNOTTA
Pocono Record Writer

EAST STROUDSBURG -Their stories are told by the eight inch squares of cloth sewn together. Those patches are just enough to reveal a little bit of their personalities: the cowboy boots and hat he had worn, the sheriff's patch he proudly bore on his chest, or a little girl's dream to be a surgeon.

Cristy, 13, wanted to be a surgeon according to one of the quilt patches displayed at a Tuesday night meeting of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Transplant Support Group. Embroidered on Cristy's patch were the words, "Now she is helping others live. . . This is what a surgeon does."

A 6 by 10 foot section of the National Kidney Foundation's National Donor Family Quilt was hung on a white wall at Pocono Medical Center here to honor those whose deaths enabled the support group members to live.

The quilt has moved along to Hartford, Conn. Some of the panels have faces. The innocent, doe-like eyes of a child and the eyes of a curly-haired woman outlined with make-up stare back at you.

In the room around the quilt, some of the 25 active members are discussing medications and illnesses. Organ recipients have to take medication for the rest of their lives to prevent their bodies from rejecting the organ. "Every one of these is dear to my heart," said Howard Kindred, founder of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Transplant Support Group.

When doctors told him he needed a liver transplant, Kindred's son was in high school. He feared dying too early. He feared leaving his wife and his son alone. "I was hoping to see him graduate from high school. Now he's in college," Kindred said of Howie Kindred, Jr. Whenever Kindred, 48, turns on MTV and sees a Third Eye Blind video pop onto the screen, he smiles. He's not sure, but he suspects these unexplained interests could be related to the fact that he carries the liver of a 17-year old in his body. And he credits his ordeal for giving him the strength to speak before an audience of as many as 200 people. "I'm not a public speaker. All of a sudden I became a public speaker," he said. "Before the transplant, I wouldn't have had the nerve to go on the radio."

The former trucking company supervisor has devoted his renewed life to increasing the number of people who put an organ donor designation on their driver's license. The support group helps those waiting for organs as well as recovering recipients. Nearly 1,100 people from Northeastern Pennsylvania are currently on the national organ transplant waiting list.

For Kindred, that wait was almost two years. His wife Kathy had only one word to describe that period of their life -"scary" When her husband played their favorite songs, she cried to herself "Now it feels better," she said, of hearing those tunes after the surgery. After a 10-hour surgery in a Pittsburgh hospital in 1995, Kindred had a new liver. "In a way, it made some sense of the death," he said. Kindred has contacted his donor's family and hopes to hear from them. But Kathy Kindred isn't so sure she would know what to say. "It breaks your heart, because I have a son myself," she said. "I mean I don't know how they did what they did."

The next stop for the panel is Hartford, Conn. Anyone interested in submitting a patch to the quilt or in joining the support group should call Howard Kindred at 717-223-2833.

This story appeared on Page - B1, Wednesday, May 13, 1998 in the Pocono Record.