PLATTSBURGH — Usually, Dr. Dexter Criss, a professor of chemistry at SUNY Plattsburgh and Plattsburgh State Gospel Choir artistic director, can’t hold water.
“He didn’t leak, not a word,” Barbara Criss, his wife and a choir soloist, said.
“Every time I would get on the subject, he would change the subject and say something like I think we got bad buildup. He knows how I am about my floors. What do you mean this wax buildup? So, it threw me. It threw me for a loop.”
“So, I stopped talking, any suggestion, anything like that, yeah. He started talking about something else, and he knows how to get my mind off of something he doesn’t want to talk about. I should have known. I should have known right then that he was up to no good. I should have known.”
CHURCH/STATE SEPARATION
When Dexter is in concert-mode, Barbara steers clear of him.
“I will tell people that’s church and state,” she said.
“Church and state don’t match. I’m church. He’s state. I will bless you every day, but no, no, no. We don’t match. I will pray for you. People don’t understand. We’ve been doing this for 15 years. I stay away from Dexter when he’s in concert mode. I get his clothes together. I put his shoes in a certain way, and I leave him alone. I don’t go near him.”
Dexter leaked not a word about his family’s impending meeting, not even in his sleep, about his Soulful Christmas surprise, Dwayne Parker, the organ recipient of the late Dalton Rashad Criss’s heart.
“I had no idea that he had invited Dwayne up here,” she said.
“Like I said, usually Dexter can’t hold water because I can pretty much get anything out of him. He kept this for two weeks. But then again, Dexter’s been doing tests, and he’s been coming home really late.”
On the day of the Soulful Christmas concert Dexter uncharacteristically assembled the choir into Krinovitz Recital Hall, down the hall from the concert venue in the E. Glenn Giltz Auditorium.
Barbara thought her husband wanted to chew the choir members out about something.
“Like a song that he was going to take out of the concert that the musicians were not comfortable doing,” she said.
“It could have been anything. I kept thinking, okay, here we go again.”
CLUELESS
Dexter asked Barbara to come up on stage.
“I thought what is going on? I was clueless.”
Her husband started talking about their son’s heart.
“Lo and behold, I turn around, and there’s Dwayne,” she said.
“Things like this just … It’s almost like a war picture, and you’re thinking the person that’s wounded, that you think has died, is going to walk through the door. It was almost like that. You’re happy, but you’re sad. It’s bittersweet. I had no clue that he was invited. It didn’t even dawn on me.”
If she had seen Jennifer Maroney, RN, Organ Donation Coordinator at UVM Medical Center, Barbara would have added two and two together.
“But, she hid from me,” she said.
“Every time she saw me coming down the hall, she ducked into some place. She saw Danielle, and she saw my mother-in-law in the bathroom.
“Mother thought she saw her, but Mother didn’t quite know who she was. She really thought Mother was going to give it away.”
Asked to recall meeting Dwayne, partly a mother and child reunion of sorts, Barbara said:
“Needless to say, that was a great homecoming. He came home, but he came home in a way that I would had never, never, had suspected him to do so. He came home during a concert. It was a great homecoming. It was a great homecoming.”
Barbara still feels as if she’s in a dream. If someone pinches her, she will wake up.
“I hadn’t heard that heartbeat in four years,” she said.
“Just listening to it. It’s almost like the ultrasound of a baby’s heart, you know, when they put that stethoscope and let you know the baby’s heartbeat is strong.
“It was like hearing the baby’s heartbeat for the first time again. That’s how I felt. It’s almost like I heard that heartbeat inside of me listening to it inside of Dwayne.”
GERIATRIC PREGNANCY
Barbara was 36 when she gave birth to Dalton on July 30, 2001 at CVPH.
She was severely injured in the car accident, which ultimately claimed Dalton’s life on August 20, 2019.
They were returning from work at Camp Topridge in Saranac Lake. Dalton was saving his money for college at SUNY Plattsburgh, where he planned to study Criminal Justice with a double minor in Music and History.
He aspired to work for the U.S. Border Patrol, to continue his path of making the world a better place, according to his Hamilton Funeral Home obituary.
“The only thing I just kept saying when I came out of the coma, was why? Why?,” Barbara said.
“Why did this have to happen to me? I think everybody always ask this, why? Why? God showed me that my faith, just to trust him. Because of my faith, it saved me.
“I knew Dwayne needed a heart. Dalton saved 50 people. Sometimes, God uses other people. He doesn’t always necessarily grow you another kidney. He had an angel already in place to provide these things, and he did.
Dwayne, 52, has the heart of an 18-year-old champion athlete.
“He’s going to live to be 90,” Barbara said.
“Dalton worked out. He was on the football team. He was captain of the wrestling team. and he could eat, and I made sure that he ate good. Drink your juice. Have eggs for protein. Take your vitamins. He didn’t take drugs. He wasn’t on any medication for depression. He was living the life, and God saw that he had done everything he needed to do,so he transitioned up to heaven. and I say, I’m going to see him one day.”
PARENTAL WISDOM
Barbara’s parents, the Rev. H.L. and Velma Simmons of Shelby, Mississippi don’t travel far from beyond there.
“They are creatures of habit,” Barbara said.
“They go to Wal-mart. They go to church. They go to the post office. and their date night is every two weeks. They go to McDonald’s, and they share a fry. My daddy gets a cup of coffee, and mamma gets her tea. They get dolled up just to go to McDonald’s. I always laugh at that.”
Barbara’s parents traveled 2,000 miles from Mississippi to UVM Medical Center just in time to see her wake up from a coma.
“My mamma was on the right side of the bed, and my daddy was on the left,” she said.
“I kept pinching myself because I kept thinking I had died and went to heaven, but why am I looking up instead of down?
“Knowing that Dalton was gone, I asked my Daddy, ‘Why didn’t He take the old lady? ‘And my Daddy whispered in my ear, ‘It wasn’t your time baby. It wasn’t your time.’
“I always remember that. He said, ‘God has you here for other things. Your job is not completed. Dalton’s job was completed.’”
FULL CIRCLE
Barbara said both of her children, Danielle and Dalton, came into the world with a bang. She is proud of all of their accomplishments, and that she and her husband raised a college-educated young woman who can support herself and is embarking on a teaching career.
Though he is on the astral plane, Dalton’s story continues.
“A warrior came home,” Barbara said.
“Dwayne was a soldier in the military, too. It’s almost like one soldier to another. The heart of a warrior comes home. Dalton loved Peru. I say a warrior because he was an Indian (former school mascot). I know they are the Nighthawks now. He was an Indian true and true. My mother is half Native-American. He was proud to be an Indian.
“Dalton was a gentle giant. He was a big guy, but he had the heart of an angel and God just took him home to be one.”
A BELOVED SISTER AS WITNESS
“My name is Danielle Chris. My brother was Dalton Chris. Mr. Parker was the recipient of my brother’s heart. When I saw him, yes, I had seen him in video chat before, but then to see how tall he was and in stature, similar to my brother, was quite interesting to see. Another man given the chance to live and be a father and a grandfather is such a gift.
“I was grateful to be with my whole family and for the organ donor (coordinator), Jen, being there with a stethoscope, so I could hear my brother’s heartbeat and to feel his chest. and all I kept thinking was that Dalton was here, in spirit he is, how cool this is.
He loved science and facts such as this. So, it honestly would have just amazed him that someone, a doctor, a surgeon, could perform this task. and this man, he’s standing here, well to speak with us, and share his life with us. I’m grateful.
I was glad to have Dalton’s heart in this man, in this space, after some years after COVID and his passing almost four years ago now, to be back in Giltz, to sing with the Gospel Choir.
And then four years later, not being in that space, and Dalton not also being there, to come back to do a wonderful show.
And Dalton , in spirit and in heart, being right there, cheering us on the entire time, literally.
Mr. Parker was standing and cheering us on as Dalton would have done.”
A GRANDMOTHER’S GRATITUDE
Bobbie Criss just hopes no one has an image or video of her when Dwayne walked in to meet the family.
“My mouth was just open,” she said.
“It was something we had prayed for, for a long time. It’s hard to explain what I felt. Barbara, they all felt his heart. I was just overwhelmed. It was like I was in an outer-body experience. It’s really hard to explain, and it brought back a lot of memories of the person Dalton was and what he accomplished in such a short time in his 18 years.
“I am thankful. I guess it’s bittersweet. Someone is living on because of the gift of life he gave. I’m a Christian. I have to give glory to God. Only He made this possible. It’s mind boggling how it works. The knowledge given to the doctors and nurses to perform something like this.
“To see him in person like that, it was overwhelming. I’m so thankful. Since Dalton left us, since Dalton passed away, I’m thankful he could give the gift of life.”