Danville native performs national anthem at SF Giants’ Donate Life Day

When Laura Michelle was 22 months old, her healthy, 41-year-old father James Howard Patterson had a heart attack, early in the morning on Father’s Day.

The Danville man was rushed to the John Muir Center in Pleasanton, where he received a heart transplant that extended his life another 14 years.

“I wouldn’t have known my father had he not received that heart transplant,” Michelle said. “I wasn’t even two years old.”

He died when she was in her teens while awaiting a liver and kidney transplant.

Now, as a singer and songwriter living in LA, Michelle is a transplant advocate, serving as the national voice for Donate Life America, the “national brand that represents organ and tissue,” said Donor Network West’s public affairs manager Noel Sanchez.

On Wednesday, Michelle performed the national anthem at AT&T Park at the 20th anniversary of the Donate Life Day, a baseball game played as a partnership between Donor Network West and the San Francisco Giants.

“I just met the most amazing people, working with them and getting to help out at these different events with the Donor Network West,” Michelle said.

Michelle’s debut album, which came out about a year ago, is in part inspired by her father.

“I released the last single off the album, which was ‘ Novel with no End,'” she said, “which was a song I wrote about my dad and the things that I never really verbalized before. I got to shoot the video in my childhood home that was actually just sold. So it’s empty except for our family photo on the wall.”

The first song in the album, “ Chuck Norris” — with a guest appearance from the man himself — went viral, Michelle said, and also was related to her father. Patterson was on dialysis for the last four years of his life, she said, and couldn’t travel for work anymore, keeping him at home.

“Somehow this became our Friday-night routine, we would watch ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ together,” Michelle said. “Getting to meet Chuck Norris — I had memories of watching the show with my dad, so that was really cool,” she added.

During this time on dialysis, he was waiting for a liver and kidney transplant, Michelle said.

“My brother and I were matches to him,” Michelle said. “But he was like, ‘I don’t want to take a kidney from one kid and part of a liver from my other kid,’ we were so young.”

He died April 1, 2000.

“He was always inspiring people and making them laugh, brightening their day,” Michelle recalled. “It didn’t matter how badly he felt, he never complained.”

Michelle found out about Donor Network West through her publicist, and was excited to participate in something so close to home — figuratively and locationally, considering that the network’s headquarters are in San Ramon, close to her Danville hometown.

“I wanted to take part in something I’m very passionate about,” she said.

While Donate Life America is the larger brand and a national alliance of non-profit organizations, Donor Network West is the specific, federally-designated non-profit in charge of the recovery and placement of organ and tissues for transplantation in northern California and Nevada. The network serves 175 hospitals in 40 counties and includes five transplant centers: California Pacific Medical Center, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford Hospital, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and UCSF Medical Center.

According to Sanchez, 22,000 Californians are currently in need of a life-saving organ transplant, 900 of whom are residents of Contra Costa County. And every day, Sanchez said, 22 people in the U.S. die still waiting for an organ transplant.

“One organ donor can save the lives of up to eight people and a tissue donor can heal 75 others,” Sanchez said. “Anyone can register as a donor, regardless of age or medical condition, at their local DMV or at DonorNetworkWest.org. It is very important to share that decision with loved ones.”

The first Donate Life Day was 20 years ago, in 1997. At this year’s event, a six-year-old liver recipient Pochie Kennedy opened the game by yelling “Play ball,” while heart and kidney recipient Lizzy Craze and liver recipient Nick Razo served as the Giants’ own Balldudette and Balldude, respectively.

“I’m really honored that they asked me to sing the national anthem,” Michelle said. “It was an amazing experience.” It was her first time opening a Giants’ game, though she’d sung at an Oakland A’s ballgame back when she was 14 years old.

“We are proud to stand hand in hand with Donor Network West, celebrating 20 years of their life-saving work through Donate Life Day,” said Sue Petersen, Executive Director of the Giants Community Fund. “This partnership reflects the Giants’ belief in how vital it is to reach fans and the larger community about organ and tissue donation.”

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