Perhaps to me the greatest story ever. When Cable Greene was diagnosed with a life threatening illness and came to need a donation of a liver, the best match was his long time colleague and friend, David Wiley.

Each as open educators shared their stories openly as personal blog posts that tell the story:

And you can listen to both of them tell it on Terry Greene’s Gettin’ Air podcast

“Amazing” as an adjective is a understatement! From Cable:

After learning of my health status, 16 friends and family volunteered to donate part of their liver to me. To say I was overwhelmed by their generosity is an understatement.

It seemed appropriate then, when the Mayo Clinic selected my liver donor, that it would be the person who helped train me in open education – David Wiley (read David’s blog post). I have known David for over a decade. He is a friend and colleague, and he saved my life.

https://creativecommons.org/2019/07/10/sharing-generosity-and-gratitude/

And David’s post again sets this friendship and what it took to make this happen in informative and human context:

Cable and I understood early on that there are a whole range of open education-related jokes to be made with regard to living liver donation. For example, is living liver donation the ultimate revise and remix activity? The recipient takes an existing resource (2/3 of the donor’s liver), incorporates it (into their body), and extends and enlarges it to truly “make it their own” (regenerating the missing 1/3). What could be a greater example of revise and remix? Then there are a range of jokes about “the 6th R” and whether this should be Regenerate or Regrow or something else. And of course, don’t we need a new Creative Commons Liver License? And, critically (sarcastically), should a person who remixes a CC-licensed liver into their body ever be allowed to participate in commercial activity again? I mean, that liver was very special to me, the donor… It was literally a part of me. Wouldn’t an NC restriction be reasonable? Etc. You get the idea. I think we’ve made most of the jokes that are possible at this point, but we’d love to hear new ones you come up with. These have been a real source of laughter and happy distraction to us.

https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/6082

Thanks both Cable and David for sharing a story that certainly fits (and expands) the concept of this story collection. Photo credit Ryan Merkley, CC BY 4.0

Media Description: Two smiling men who are obviously good friends, arms wrapped each other, each wearing a t-shirt reading-- i love to share

Shared by: Summarized by Alan Levine with thanks to Cable Green and David Wiley.

Reuse License: CC BY Creative Commons By Attribution