A Grateful Heart

To The Haldimand Press

DUNNVILLE—It was an affair of the heart, literally, at author Rick Prashaw’s Soar, Adam, Soar book reading at the Minga Café last week.

Beside Prashaw, whose Dad (Dick) and grandmother (Ethel) hailed from Dunnville, was John Dickhout, a professional actor and himself a former resident of Dunnville. Dickhout is the heart recipient of Prashaw’s late son, Adam, 22, who died in 2016 after a seizure-related drowning.

Soar, Adam, Soar is the tale of a father’s love and of a son’s courage to live life to the fullest despite medical and gender identity challenges. Incredibly, Adam’s mother intuited she was carrying a boy during the pregnancy. The parents called their child Adam in the womb and even after a doctor announced them parents of a “beautiful baby girl” at the birth, they decided to legally name the child Rebecca Danielle Adam Prashaw.

Several local relatives of the author and actor were among the 45 in attendance hearing how, despite Ontario anonymity rules for organ donors and recipients, Dickhout cleverly identified his donor and hatched a plan to introduce himself. Dickhout shared how he woke from his transplant determined to know his donor’s identity. First, he wrote a “heart-filled” three-page anonymous letter to Prashaw.