First and foremost I returned to the games as manager of Team Arizona, and as a recipient athlete ready for my partner and I to at least defend our bronze medals from the 1998 and 2002 Games.

Then there is that other side to my life that I become immersed in at each Games since 1996 - the donor family side of things.

For the first time, this year it became important to me to remember my oldest sister as well as my older brother at the National Donor Recognition Ceremony. She died 35 years ago and that long ago there wasn't much talk about donation and how our loved ones could help. I would like to think that my family has always believed (as I do) that we would have donated if the situation had been different. My older brother died in 1994, 3 years after my heart transplant and certainly there was no decision necessary then; donating was what we did.

Though my sister and I were separated by 13 years we were close. She was married and had 3 children by the time I was 10. Three years later she died. For these Games and this National Donor Family Ceremony I wanted her to be remembered, her name read aloud along with my brother's, because now my mother can't even remember my name.

I attended the ceremony with other donor family members on our team to support them, knowing and understanding the hole in your heart that never goes away. I was given the privilege of carrying those beautiful hearts filled with representations of the lives of our loved ones at the ceremony.

For a while it appeared that Rich Salick, one of the name readers, was not going to make the ceremony because of traffic and I was asked to fill in if necessary, something I would have done in a heartbeat.

I was given the list to review. There were four lists. I was to read second. I reviewed the names carefully, hoping to pronounce each one correctly.

There on the list were the names Ann Gronek and Paul Landers, my sister and my brother. To be honest I'm not sure I could have kept myself together when reading that list. But the reader arrived, and I didn't have to, and my sister and my brother were remembered for my family and me.