Our live coverage has ended. Scroll through the posts to read some of the responses.
All it took was a bundle of sloppy kisses and quivering energy to convince Jolyn Koehl that something was missing in her life.
Between feeling lonely and stressed during the pandemic, Koehl said there were moments of extreme gratitude and connection, she told CNN.
“Everything I loved about the city was unavailable; restaurants, concerts, happy hours. But it forced me to slow down and consider how I might want my life to change after the pandemic,” she said.
Koehl, a vice president at Zeno Group, a strategic communications firm, decided to foster a 3-month-old puppy named Zemo from Paws Chicago due to working from home, an abundance of free time, and the need for a “temporary companion that would” get her off the couch, she told CNN.
Zemo recently went to his forever home, leaving behind “nose smudges on the window, a half-eaten jar of peanut butter, a squeaky ball under my dresser and a place in my heart forever,” Koehl said.
In terms of whether she’ll be adopting a dog, Koehl said “it is only a matter of time now; just need to find my own big backyard first.”
Roxanne Watson is most grateful for one thing: her heart, and the man who gave it to her.
Watson, 67, was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and was on the transplant list for four years. She was hospitalized in critical care for nearly three months.
“On the 60th day of critical care I had an ‘Aha’ moment,” she said. “I told myself, ‘If you live, you will do this work so no one will have to suffer so much to get a donor.”
A month later, Watson got a young man’s heart in a transplant that saved her life.
Her donor, firefighter Michael Bovill, 23, had died in a motorcycle accident.
That was in July 2010. Since then, Watson has made it her mission to register people to be organ donors. She says she’s spread her message at schools, libraries and shopping malls, and has registered about 12,000 people so far.
As a volunteer firefighter and an active duty member of the US Coast Guard, Bovill lived in New Jersey and spent his short time on Earth trying to save lives. Watson wants to spend the rest of her days repaying that favor.
Watson has met Bovill’s parents and stays in touch with them. She now tells people she’s 34. That’s how old he would have been this year.
James Campbell grew up in Indianapolis, home to the “Indy 500” – one of the most famous racetracks in the world.
As a child, he always wanted to be a race car driver but life and a career got in the way.
Campbell said the pandemic drove home that life is short and when he thought about all the things he would want to achieve in his life, one thing stood out: “drive a race car.”
He was living in Minnesota at the time and had a friend instructing at Brainerd International Raceway so he decided to make his dream come true.
And when he did, the experience didn’t disappoint.
“I felt like a dream had come true,” he said. “The fact that I could have done that sooner was something that bothered me some. I also had a feeling of relief and extreme joy.”
That experience ignited something in him and it won’t be his last. Campbell intends to go back next year.
