Mike Barker has been the subject of a number of media inquiries leading up to his participation in the 41st running of The Cowtown footraces this weekend at the Will Rogers Memorial Center.
All things being equal, the attention he is being given is not really his thing.
That said, all things are not equal, however, for his entries in Saturday’s 5K and Sunday’s half-marathon. Barker has new obligations that he is delighted – actually, the right word is “honored” – to see through, all of it outlined in the most difficult letter he has ever penned.
It’s not about him anyway. He has made that perfectly clear.
Barker is running for the family that lost a teenage son and brother in an accident.
That same family, in the midst of unimaginable grief and anguish, made the decision to give new life to others by donating their son’s organs.
Barker was gifted the boy’s liver and will run this weekend, seven months after receiving the transplant. The race will also be an opportunity to promote organ donation. The gifts of one person can save as many as eight lives.
It’s not just about The Cowtown races. Barker, 55, a resident of Irving, said he has recommitted his life to making sure he lives it in a way that would honor the young man and his family, a family who could look at him and say, “yes, I’m pleased that this person received the gift that we gave.”
“This family had a big enough heart for people they don’t know and probably will never know to make a decision at that time in life, probably the greatest sense of despair and loss, to turn around and try to make a difference in other people’s lives,” said Barker.
“That’s the reason I’ve done these interviews. With all the discourse we see today and everybody fighting with everybody and everybody being mad about one thing or another … and then we’re reminded of our humanity, of people caring about people. That’s what has impacted my life as much as having the transplant.”
Barker’s wife, Fatima, and his mother, Jean Harris, are also running, inspired by the same reasons. Ms. Harris, in her 70s, will only be running the 5K, the first race she has ever run.
She won’t finish first, but that doesn’t matter. This is merely one way to say, “thank you.”
Barker’s work at Fluor, a global engineering and construction company in Irving, requires that he travel the world, something he finds ironic considering that before he left for school at the University of North Texas, he had never left boondocks Arkansas. He grew up outside the town of El Dorado.
Barker’s youth was spent in the outlying belt of a town of 18,000. His high school class numbered 52.
Running became a lifestyle he adopted in his mid-40s. He wanted to lose weight and generally get in better shape. He kicked a smoking habit and bought some running shoes.
Over time he went from a one-mile run and walk – a struggle at the beginning — to 26.2 miles.
Vancouver was the destination for his first attempt at the ultimate endurance race, whose origins are rooted in Greek mythology. As the story goes, Pheidippides was sent off for a run from the Battle of Marathon to announce the Athenian army’s victory over the Persians.
Barker’s story is familiar to long-distance runners.
“I wanted my first full to be where I had never been before,” He said. “When I finished it I was like, ‘you crazy old man. What in the world do you think you’re doing?’ I had to walk like four blocks back the hotel. And I had to keep sitting down on the way over there. I said, ‘I am never going to do this again.’
“The next morning, I was driving back to Seattle, and I thought, ‘you know what, I think I can get under four hours.’”
Since then, Barker and his wife have run half and full marathons in cities across North America, including Big Sur in Southern California, Portland, Calgary, Quebec, Niagara Falls and, of course, Dallas and Fort Worth.
All of those miles proved to be nothing of a challenge compared to what he was confronted with four years ago.
Barker was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis, the same underlying condition that cost Walter Payton his life at age 45 in 1999. The cause of PSC is undetermined, though researchers believe it could be genetic.
This was all very unfamiliar.
Barker’s outlook for a transplant wasn’t very high. His MELD score, the metric given to prospective transplant recipients with end-stage liver disease, wasn’t good. In essence, the score is used by hospitals to prioritize the allocation of donated livers. The MELD was put into place so that the sickest patients get the first livers available.
His doctor had made a plea to the review board to raise Barker’s MELD, but, still, at best, he didn’t expect anything better than an “at-risk” liver, or one not completely healthy.
Barker accepted that a transplant might not happen at all. He made a bucket list, his belief that he might have two to three years left. He wanted to scuba dive with his wife and two children, something they all did together.
Barker also had to confront the inevitable depression that comes along with the reality that chronic illness would cheat him of time.
In the end, there were only two options: “Are you going to waste the days that you have feeling sorry for yourself, being mad at the world, or are you going to try to make the best of the time that you have?”
Then one Sunday in July around midnight, an angel appeared at his door literally out of the blue.
It was an Irving police officer, who had been asked to find Barker. Barker and his wife had both turned their phones to “do not disturb.” The officer said he had been directed to deliver a message: “I don’t know what this is about, but I’ve been asked to come over and tell you to call this phone number.”
It was Methodist Medical Center of Dallas. They had found a liver for Barker.
When he met with his doctor, he learned that it wasn’t an at-risk liver, after all, but rather a teen donor. His doctor had successfully helped him raise his MELD score.
“When he told me it was a teenager, instead of being happy about what I had just heard, it really kicked me hard, man,” Barker said. “This is not supposed to be a 17-year-old kid dying to give a 54-year-old man a new lease on life.
“I’m 54, going on 55 [at the time], and I’ve had a great life. It should be me giving a 17-year-old a chance to live life.”
His doctor recognized his emotional struggle.
“‘What you have to do is you have to make the most of this gift,’” Barker recalled the doctor telling him. “‘They’re giving you a second chance at life, and you have to make the most of it.’
“That’s what I’ve tried to do.”
Part of that was the letter. Barker said he writes quite a bit with his work, but this letter … .
How do you tell a heartbroken family thank you … because of your loss, I’m alive?
“From my point of view, I had an obligation to send them that letter,” Barker said.
After the surgery, Barker was off work for eight weeks for recovery. He knew what else he would be doing during that time. It took him three weeks to finish.
“Maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said.
He started and stopped, stutter stepping because he was worried about coming across the wrong way. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt them. Saying nothing would be better than saying the wrong thing.
“A lot of times, I’d sit down to write, and I’d get so emotional. I’d think about the family and losing their child. Both of my children are just a few years older. I just couldn’t write.”
Finally, he found the right words The rest of his days, he told them, would be devoted to recommitting himself to a life of living well in such a way to honor the family and their son.
Being a good father, a good son and a good brother were things that had always been important to him. He had a renewed understanding of the importance of treating others well and Their compassion and consideration for another at the lowest point of their lives had impacted him in a way he could barely grasp.
Faith, hope and charity, and things such as feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, giving shelter to strangers, clothing the naked and visiting the sick all took on a deeper meaning.
And because of it, a part of their son would live on.