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SALT LAKE CITY — Zendaya Sookey Peterson was a happy and healthy baby. She was always smiling and very obviously loved her big sister, Eliza.
Her mother also saw something unique in Zendaya, even from an early age, believing she might have had a different purpose in life.
That purpose was realized on July 22, 2016, when 4-month-old Zendaya could not be awaked from her late-afternoon nap.
"Just before she passed, she had touched the side of all our faces and made eye contact," said Andrea Warner, Zendaya's grandmother, who attended the Celebration of Life Monument ceremony at Library Square on Saturday.
She is grateful that Zendaya was included in the ceremony, even though her organs were too far gone to be counted for donation after the process was started to use them to save other's lives.
"We recognize that you have helped others in need while you yourselves have suffered a tragic loss," said Karen Hannahs, director of donor family services at Intermountain Donor Services, which hosts the event every year.
Four hundred ninety-nine names were added to the Celebration of Life Monument this year, including 33 who provided living donations — bringing the total to 7,172 who have provided organ, eye, tissue, and living or whole body donation throughout Utah.
Of those 499 added this year, 99 provided 373 life-saving transplants, as well as 228 bone and 127 heart valve donations used to improve the quality of life for many people. Hundreds of skin and spine tissue donations, blood vessels and arteries, as well as 253 whole bodies were donated to the University of Utah for medical research.
"I was basically headed for the exit," said Jim Nelson, a volunteer for the American Lung Association and the COPD Foundation. "The only chance I had was a transplant."
The former smoker, who also grew up in the home of a heavy smoker, said chronic obstructive pulmonary disease caught up with him 36 years after he had quit smoking. And about six years ago, Nelson, 76, became "the luckiest man in the world," he said, when he received a double lung transplant that not only gave him life but changed his life.
He has since met the Utah family of his donor and has devoted his life to educating people about his disease.
"It makes a difference," he said, thanking everyone for their part in organ, eye and tissue donation.
Utah sixth-grader, Makenzie Madsen was born seemingly healthy but had to have sudden open-heart surgery at 14 months old. When the surgery didn't solve her problems, doctors told her parents she would need a transplant.
Three months later, in May 2007, Makenzie, now 11, was given a new heart and has had to fight to keep it going ever since.
"I pray for my donor family every night," she said Saturday. "I love my life."
Tracy Schmidt, executive director at Intermountain Donor Services, said the circular fountain at the Celebration of Life Monument, located at 500 South and 300 East in Salt Lake City, intentionally depicts the "ripple effect" of organ, eye and tissue donation.
"We are all connected. Each of us carries within us the capacity to change the world in small ways," he said. "I am overwhelmed with all the good in these people."
Schmidt said each name etched along the glass walls of the monument "is special, and each has a story that means something to somebody."
Just weeks before the fateful day that Julianna Peterson found her baby daughter not breathing, the extended family had a (now ironic) discussion about organ donation, stating that they would choose to donate anything left of themselves to help others — that it was not even a question.
"They made that decision not knowing how immediately it would come," Warner said.
Medical personnel were able to get a pulse while in the ambulance headed to the hospital with Zendaya, but it was unknown how long she had been gone, Warner said. She was found facedown in her bed that day, and her cause of death was ultimately unexplained and later classified as sudden infant death syndrome.
"They did everything they were supposed to do," Warner said, adding that the support from her Orem community was comforting. Peterson and her family lived with the Warners at the time, but have since moved to Arizona.
Police and first responders to the death were overwhelmed with grief for the family, Warner said, profusely thanking everyone who helped or offered service.
"Her personality was just starting to come out," Warner said of Zendaya's last days. "We have definitely felt her with us in our hardships."
The "beautiful but heart-wrenching experience," she said, has taught the family a lot about life and while Zendaya, they believe, did fulfil her purpose in life, she is also very loved and fiercely missed.
To register as an organ donor, visit Yes Utah's official website.
