This Seemed Like My Calling: Howard Kurtzman’s Kidney Donation Story

Back in November, I was visiting friends on Whidbey Island, and a friend told me about her friend who was in desperate need of a kidney. She and all her friends were doing all they could to try to find someone who would donate a kidney. I said, well, I’ll get tested.

The next day, I signed up with the National Kidney Registry, and the next week when I returned to Atlanta, I started the process.

In December, it turned out that someone had donated on behalf of the person who needed a kidney and given him a voucher, so he no longer needed me to continue. But I had decided that this seemed like my calling, and I was going to continue as long as they considered me eligible.

On my trip back to Whidbey Island in March, I was notified that I was eligible. We scheduled my surgery for April 22, 2026, and they found a match.

It turns out that I am the first donor from Piedmont whose kidney has ever gone to Hawaii, so my kidney is living large. I don’t know the recipient, I don’t know if I ever will.

It’s been five weeks since my surgery, and I feel great. I think I climbed nine flights of stairs on my second day after surgery, and I walked three miles on day five. I am pretty much back to my normal routine.

I never took any meds; I only used an ice pack. It was painful, but that is a distant memory, and my pain is nothing compared to what people go through on a daily basis.

I wake up every morning so grateful for how healthy I am, and for the opportunity I had to hopefully change someone’s life for the better.

Thirty years ago, I offered to be a donor for a friend, and then his brother turned out to be a perfect match, so I didn’t do it. I didn’t think about pursuing it as an altruistic donor back then; I was just doing it for a friend.

This time, it was not on my mind, but when my friend told me the story, the very next day I was signed up.

I know it is a big deal, but it doesn’t feel like a big deal to me. I feel like I have had a charmed life, and I hope my recipient is having one too.

About the Author

Howard Kurtzman is an artist whose journey began in 1986, when a friend placed paint in his hand and encouraged him to simply express what he felt. That moment unlocked a lifelong practice. He has been painting ever since—not from formal training, but from instinct, curiosity, and an unrelenting need to translate experience into color.

Entirely self-taught, Howard creates every hue on his canvas by hand-blending colors as the work demands. His style is not something he set out to define; it is the natural result of what flows from his hand and his heart, just as it did on that very first day. Each painting is an honest response to the moment in which it was created.

Over the years, Howard has sold approximately 400 paintings, many of which reside in private collections throughout the world. His work stands as a visual record of a life fully felt—unfiltered, unvarnished, forever changing, and unmistakably his own and marked by an unmistakable artistic identity.