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Arlin Fisher says he wishes the catalyst for his work to educate the public about organ donation wasn’t so traumatic. “This was born out of some of our most miserable days,” says Fisher, CRS, a real estate agent with PARK CO., REALTORS®, in Fargo, N.D.
In 2018, Fisher’s 22-year-old son, Cameron, was in a car accident. Fisher’s cousin, who was traveling on the same highway that day, saw the accident and got out to help. She called Fisher from the scene of the accident as she held Cameron’s hand. “It was a gift that she was there,” Fisher says. “She was able to tell us that [Cameron] was responsive, that he could squeeze her hand.”
But when emergency responders extracted Cameron from the vehicle, his lungs collapsed and his brain was deprived of oxygen for 20 minutes. Two days later while in the hospital, Cameron was pronounced brain dead.
Fisher and his wife, Sarah, chose to donate Cameron’s organs. His heart, liver, kidneys, two corneas and tissue were donated to patients in need. Fisher says it brought him a morsel of peace while dealing with an insurmountable loss. “In the five years since Cameron’s passing, he’s helped 120 people through organ donation. I would have struggled so much more if it weren’t for organ donation because how do you justify in your mind that a perfectly healthy 22-year-old died?”
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Fisher also found purpose in spreading the word about organ donation. He and Sarah started Crosses for Cameron, a nonprofit aimed at increasing awareness of organ donation. He developed a pamphlet and delivered it to countless schools, teacher’s conferences, civic groups and health fairs.
Still, for Sarah, something was missing, Fisher says. After Cameron’s death, she became more aware of and sensitive to the fact that everyone in her community was dealing with some kind of pain.
“In late 2019, she said to me, ‘Arlin, there’s so much pain and suffering in our community—mental and physical. We need to do something,’” Fisher recalls. “She said that nature is a healing element for the body and soul, and she wanted to start a garden in Fargo. She wanted to provide people with a place to go to reflect, remember, relax, unwind—whatever they needed.”
Looking for a way to bring Sarah’s dream to life, Fisher contacted the facilities director of the Fargo park system, who then took the idea to the city commission. After many meetings and presentations, the garden was approved.
“We were only asked one question: ‘Are you sure the garden is big enough?’” Fisher says.
Arlin and Sarah Fisher started fundraising for the garden, and small donations came pouring in. After raising $97,000, they were able to break ground in October 2021 on the first phase of the Garden of Healing, a 60-by-40-foot space in Fargo’s downtown. Mayors from five surrounding cities—as well as North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum—attended the garden’s grand opening.
“People really do use it to seek healing,” Fisher says. “I was there a couple of days ago, and two women came up to me and told me that they come to the garden to remember their loved one. They said they could go to the cemetery, but that’s not a happy place. They come to the garden to remember who their loved one was and what they did.”
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily halted Fisher’s efforts. “Sarah looked at me and she said, ‘We need to keep providing awareness around organ donation,’ and I asked her how we were going to do that.”
Sarah took a sandwich bag and placed in it a rock that she had painted. She then took three small sheets of paper—one with Cameron’s story, one that explained organ donation and one that offered an affirmation of hope along with a call to action for others to share their organ donation story on social media—and she placed those in the bag. She then told Fisher that they were going to tell the story of the rock packet on their social media and offer to send a rock packet to anyone who requested it. Her goal was to have one rock packet in every state within six months.
“I thought it was silly. But in 6 days, we had a rock packet in every state,” Fisher says.
Now there are 30,000 Crosses for Cameron rock packets in hands around the country. At one point, Sarah even received a call from a woman who told her she’d found the rock packet at the lowest moment in her life, and Cameron’s story inspired her to stay alive. The rock packets, the presentations and the Garden of Healing all serve as ways that the Fishers foster community healing, which, in turn, gives them some comfort in the loss of their son.
The commissioners who asked if the garden was big enough in its initial phase were right to do so. “It was 2,400 square feet, and it wasn’t big enough,” Fisher says. “We went back to the park district and asked for another space that is about the size of a football field.”
This time they hired a professional landscaping architect to devise a detailed plan. Phase II of the Garden of Healing, which will cost about $1.5 million, is where Arlin and Sarah Fisher’s focus is now. They’re hoping to raise the $1.5 million, plus an extra $200,000, to start an endowment to ensure the maintenance of the garden doesn’t become a burden for Fargo’s taxpayers. “We won’t live forever, but we want the garden to,” Fisher says.
