A Gathering of 'Angels' on Reade Street

By April Koral
POSTED OCT. 2, 2006

Sometimes saying “thank you” just isn’t enough.

Not, at least, to friends who cooked for you and cared for your child when you couldn’t. Or to someone who lent their apartment when you needed one. And certainly not to the doctor who saved your life.

Last month Moira North and her husband Jay Colton, who live on Chambers Street, threw a party for those who did all that and more. It was another way of saying thank you to friends and family who helped Colton, in desperate need of a kidney last year. North, who, ever so graciously gave him one of hers, was there to greet the guests. “Welcome, welcome,” she said to them, as they came through the door of the Bikini Bar, a store on Reade Street that by day sells vintage rattan furniture. To her surprise, some of them handed her gifts.

“You are the most courageous woman I have ever met,” one murmured, kissing her. “What a great thing you did,” another said.

Less than a year ago, Colton’s kidneys were failing. On dialysis and making repeated emergency trips to the hospital, his only hope for life was a transplant. The list of patients like him was long. It could be an eight-year wait.

But as his body and spirits failed him, family and friends didn’t.

Colton’s brother, boss and colleagues at Time, where he works as a picture editor, all stepped forward to offer kidneys of their own. For a variety of medical reasons, none were candidates.

North, a former champion figure skater and founder of the Ice Theater of New York, was a match. But she was rejected because her kidneys, doctors said, weren’t working at “optimal level.”

North wouldn’t accept the verdict. “A  friend said to me ‘Why don’t you talk to Alan Weinstein? He’s a nephrologist,’” North recalled. “Alan was my skating student. I knew he was a doctor, but didn’t know what kind. I  asked him if maybe my kidneys weren’t working optimally because I hadn’t drunk enough water or eaten enough proteins beforehand. He said it was possible.”

North asked to be tested again. This time, she was accepted. 

Despite North’s joy at the news, some friends discouraged her from becoming a donor. “They said, ‘If something should happen to both of you, who would take care of Christopher [the couple’s 13-year-old-son]?’ North recalled. “Christopher and Jay are so close. I felt like giving a kidney to Jay was like giving it to both of them.”

Even her husband was concerned about accepting the kidney from her.

“I told him I was giving it as a friend,” North said. “I said to him. ‘It doesn’t mean you have to stay with me, it doesn’t mean you have to be nice to me for the rest of your life. This should be a gift, not a burden. It is tied to friendship, not marriage.’”

After the operation (Moira was back on the ice after just two weeks and Colton returned to work in three months), the couple vowed to give a party. They would invite 80 guests, many of whom, in one way or another, had been by their side during their darkest and most difficult days.

In the spirit of a celebration, some guests donned leis from a basket near the door, and the crowd feasted on sturgeon, sushi, lobster rolls and filet mignon. One of Elvis’s Hawaiian movies was projected on the wall.

Then, sometime near the end of the night, the guests fell silent and Colton spoke to his wife and guests. “Of course I want to thank my wife whose kidney I am borrowing on an extended loan. I am blessed to have her as my best friend!”

And then he spoke of his guests, his “angels,” as he called them.

“You offered your hands, homes, hearts and yes,” he said, “even your kidneys in my time of need. I will always be in your debt.”