A brutal tragedy in Macon has resulted in a second chance at life for a woman in Byram.
Just over a year ago, Moseziner “Moe” Crozier could not do simple things like have a long conversation, go grocery shopping or walk across a room.
The Byram resident had suffered from advanced heart failure for more than eight years. She was on the list for a heart transplant but because of a rare blood type, the chances that she would receive one were slim.
In the middle of February 2015, she was confined to a bed at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. A month later, she lost her appetite. In an effort to get the 51-year-old eating, doctors took her off a restricted diet.
On March 5, Crozier requested a Chick-Fil-A breakfast. When a nurse returned with it, Crozier’s doctor interrupted and told her she could not eat it.
“I was like, ‘You told me I could have anything I want!'” Crozier remembered. “And then he said, ‘We got you a heart.'”
A tragedy in Macon
The heart had belonged to Kristopher Haywood, 28, of Macon. Born in Starkville and raised in Macon, Kris, as his friends called him, rambled a bit after college, but he eventually moved back to Macon, got a job at a gas station and made plans to go back to school.
He felt he had found his calling — to be a social worker.
On March 2, the gas station where he was working was robbed. Kris was shot during the incident. He was taken from a Macon hospital to another in Meridian and finally to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.
On March 4, Kris died.
Four people have been charged with capital murder for his death. Their trials are tentatively set for September.
The second of three siblings, Kris was well-known in the Macon area.
Carol Haywood, his mother, said Kris was a friendly man with a good sense of humor and a heart for helping people — particularly children, the elderly and pets. He rescued injured and abandoned animals, once keeping nine dogs at a time. He made friends everywhere he lived, a list that included Columbus, Starkville, Tupelo and Huntsville, Alabama.
After his death, the Haywoods decided to donate his organs.
“We wanted something good to come from (his death),” Haywood said. “And we knew Kris would have wanted something good to come from it.”
‘We got you a heart’
Crozier’s initial reaction to the news that she would get a heart was exhilaration.
“You’re immediately happy,” she said. “You think, ‘God has delivered me! My life is just gonna be great. I’ve been saved.'”
But, soon the realization sank in. For her to get this heart, someone else had to have died.
She was still thinking about that when a hospital chaplain came into the room to talk to her about her good news.
“I said, ‘I’m excited about it but somebody’s family has lost a member today, they’ve lost a family member’,” Crozier recalled.
At that moment, Crozier knew nothing about Kris Haywood or the violent circumstances of his death. All she knew was that someone had died and that because of that, she would get a second chance at life. So in the hospital room, Crozier joined hands with the chaplain and prayed for the Haywoods, without yet knowing who they were.
‘Indescribable’
The four-hour heart transplant surgery took place on March 6, 2015. The next day, Crozier — who had not walked in more than three weeks — walked up and down the hall outside her hospital room. It was not a long walk, Crozier said, because her legs were weak from inactivity, but that was the only reason. She had no shortness of breath, no tightness in her chest.
“It was indescribable!” she said. “It was so good!”
Kris’s organs were donated to five different people, two of whom live in Mississippi, according to a letter the Haywoods received from the Mississippi Organ Recovery Agency.
For a while though, the Haywoods still didn’t know much about Crozier. They could only make contact through MORA which keeps names and letters anonymous unless both parties — the family of the donor and the person who received the organ — agree to know each other’s names.
Crozier wrote a short letter to the Haywoods not long after the surgery. About three months later, near the end of June, she received a slightly longer reply from Haywood.
Eventually, they decided to meet.
‘Kris would have loved her’
On Feb. 27, Crozier met the Haywoods at the agency. The meeting included Crozier and Kris Haywood’s immediate family — his parents Harvey and Carol Haywood; his sisters, Lindsay Denton and Jamie Brooke Haywood; and his nephews, Jackson, 3, and Colt, 2.
Crozier had been a little apprehensive about coming face to face with the family. She was only alive because the family’s son died. But she had a feeling she needed to meet the family.
Haywood would later tell her she had had the same feeling.
The meeting was immediately comfortable.
“After we got through hugging and crying, we just talked,” Crozier said. “We sat around like we’d known each other for years, just talking.”
Haywood agreed.
“Kris would have loved her,” she said about Crozier.
She realized immediately that Crozier and Kris had the same sense of humor. Watching Crozier put her arm around Jamie Haywood was like watching Kris put his arm around her, Haywood said.
The Haywoods told Crozier about Kris. They told her about his car accidents. They told her that even though their church only has about 300 members that over 800 people signed the funeral’s guest book. They told her about the animals he rescued. They told her that Carol Haywood still keeps Kris’ long-haired cat, Duke, even though she is horribly allergic to cats.
Haywood says she will always remember Crozier’s sweet spirit and her sense of humor. But what Crozier will remember most about the meeting is the look on Haywood’s face when she listened through a stethoscope to Kris’ heart beating.
“Her face — you can’t describe what was on her face,” Crozier said. “She heard it. She heard his heart beat again. That was my favorite part right there. Made it all worthwhile.”
Gifts of life and hope
Crozier and the Haywoods agreed to keep in touch. Crozier just sent Jamie Haywood a birthday card, signing it “Moe-Kris,” which Haywood had joked she would call her from now on.
Haywood is now hoping to meet the woman who received her son’s kidney. All the agency has told her so far is that the recipient is a 31-year-old mom.
Mostly, she is glad that some good came from her son’s death. Kris hasn’t just given these five receivers life, she said, but he gave them and their families hope.
“And hope spreads like wildfire,” she said.
She wants people to hear Kris’s story and find ways to spread hope and to be willing to donate their organs when they die.
“That’s what I want my son’s legacy to be,” she said.
As for Crozier, she is thrilled about being able to do things most people take for granted.
“I can do my own laundry, wash dishes,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like much important. But when you can’t do it, it’s exciting. It’s just so wonderful.”
She hopes to use her second chance to volunteer at the hospital where her life was saved. She has so many opportunities now, she’s not sure what to do. She said she thinks she’d like to go back to school and learn to be a teacher.
Or maybe a social worker, like Kris.
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