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A few months ago, Suzanne Weiner and Heather Bonime didn't know each other. Now, says Weiner, "I think we'll be friends forever."

Their paths crossed unexpectedly after Weiner, grateful for community help in rebuilding her family's flood-ravaged grocery store, decided to give back -- and she gave to Bonime the gift of life.

With help from fellow members of Temple Emanuel, a Reform synagogue in Mt. Lebanon, Weiner and her husband, Jeffrey, rebuilt their McDonald, Washington County, store that was destroyed last September by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan. They opened Groceries Plus More to customers in January.

"We were completely wiped out," said Weiner, 47, a mother of four children ages 3 to 15. "Then people from temple came and helped us clean up."

Weiner, of South Fayette, then read a letter sent by her synagogue's spiritual leader, Rabbi Mark Mahler, about an anonymous temple member suffering from polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disorder that causes cysts to grow and multiply on the kidneys. Eventually, the swollen organs shut down, causing end-stage renal failure.

The human body can survive with just one normal kidney. The only treatments for polycystic kidney disease are dialysis, which cycles blood through a machine to cleanse toxins, or a transplant.

"Here I am, thinking that I am so fortunate that I have four wonderful children and that we came back from this flood, and that I have everything I could possibly want," Weiner said. "Then here's somebody who would miss out on all this if they didn't get a kidney."

In Judaism, a great mitzvah -- or commandment -- a person can perform is to save another's life.

Weiner resolved to find out if she would be a compatible kidney donor for the rabbi's friend, later identified as Heather Bonime, 49, of Upper St. Clair.

As reported last July by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, more than 20 members of Bonime's family -- cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents -- have been ravaged by polycystic kidney disease.

Most sufferers develop the disease in their late 60s. Bonime anticipated she'd need a kidney transplant someday, but not so early in life. She was surprised to learn during a routine visit to the doctor that her kidney function had worsened, and last November she went on the transplant waiting list.

For medical reasons, Bonime's husband, Jonathan, their two children and other family members were not potential donors. She expected to wait for a cadaveric organ, or the benevolence of a friend or stranger.

Almost 62,000 Americans -- among them 717 Western Pennsylvanians -- are awaiting kidney transplants, and because of a shortage of donors, only about one-third of them will get an organ, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Every day, more than 10 people die waiting for kidney transplants, the organization reports.

Thanks to Rabbi Mahler's letter, Bonime waited less than a year for her kidney. Weiner's tissue was a close match. The transplant was performed Sept. 26 by Dr. Ron Shapiro at UPMC Montefiore hospital in Oakland.

"I'm a very giving person, but normally I don't give away body parts," said Weiner, who recovered quickly from the operation. "For some reason, though, I knew this was something I was supposed to do."

"I said to Suzanne when we met, 'Why would you want to do this for me? You have four kids,' " Bonime said. "She told me, 'That's exactly why.' But it was still really hard to fathom that someone who was basically a stranger would give a part of herself to me so selflessly."

Bonime takes powerful immunosuppresant drugs to prevent rejection of the donor kidney and undergoes regular blood tests. She is still afraid for her children, who have a 50/50 chance of developing PKD.

Yet the chronic pain and fatigue are gone, and with luck, Bonime's new kidney will last 20 to 25 years.

"I feel great," she said. "Everyone says I have color in my cheeks again and my energy back. Before, by the time I got out of bed in the morning I was ready to go back to sleep."

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