From gift of life to shared dream realized, South Jersey dads share best Father's Day ever

Jared Copeland had the best Father’s Day of his life last June when he was able to give the gift of life to his young daughter.

The Shamong resident was able to donate an organ to his daughter Mia, who was born with an ultra-rare genetic disease called cystinosis.

“The best Father’s Day I have experienced was last June when I donated my right kidney to our then 6-year-old daughter,” said Copeland, a commercial airline pilot.

Copeland is one of several South Jersey dads, who responded to a social media post from the Courier Post, Burlington County Times and Daily Journal, asking them to share their “Best Father’s Day,” so we could share those stories with our readers.

Copeland said cystinosis is a lysosomal storage disease, which prevents the body’s cells from excreting amino acid called cystine.

According to rarediseases.org, it’s a multisystem genetic disorder characterized by the accumulation of cystine in tissues and organs of the body, including the kidneys, eyes, muscles, liver, pancreas and brain. The age of onset, symptoms and severity can very greatly from one person to another. Kidneys and eyes are the two organs most often affected.

“The good news is that an early diagnosis can significantly improve the prognosis of the disease; the bad news is that it often goes misdiagnosed for years, resulting in irreversible organ damage, as was the case for Mia who was not diagnosed until 3½ years,” Copeland said. “By that point, she had only 50% kidney function and nearly no thyroid function.”

Copeland and his wife Shannon knew Mia would need a kidney transplant “or two or three, in her lifetime. It was not a question of if, it was a question of when. We were hopeful that her kidneys would at least get her through her teenage years, but we knew with her late diagnosis that, that may not happen.”

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In December 2020, the family learned during her routine blood work that Mia’s kidney function was steadily declining and her nephrology team became concerned. If the decline continued on its course, Mia would need a transplant very soon.

“We received terrible news in late 2020 that her kidneys were failing,” Shannon Copeland recalled. “They fell to 7% and she was put on dialysis until she could receive a kidney transplant.

“My husband gave her one of his kidneys — the most selfless gift a person can give, the gift of life. Mia was in the hospital six weeks total between dialysis waiting for the kidney, and the kidney transplant recovery.”

'Chopped' star's special Father's Day

Timothy Witcher is married with three children and has a demanding job as a chef, running The Wing Kitchen restaurant, which has multiple locations and a food truck.

Family is at his core of everything that he does. It’s his motivation.

“My best Father’s Day was in 2020,” said Witcher, a former winner of the Food Network’s show “Chopped”.

The Willingboro native, who lives in the Lindenwold area, remembers it like it was yesterday.

“My premature son, Ace, was finally home and our entire family was together,” he recalled. “My wife (Monique) and kids decided to recreate my favorite past Father’s Day picture that was then my two children when they were young — one [was] in an apron and one was in a pot. This picture was all three in ‘The Wing Kitchen’ T-shirts and my youngest in a pot. I guess it’s a chef thing.”

Ace was born January 21, 2020, and was in the hospital for 3½ months.

“Anybody that knows me knows that God and my family are the most important things in my life, and this moment during the height of the pandemic brought it all into perspective,” Witcher shared.

Ace is now a healthy, bouncing 2-year-old, and then there’s daughter Amani, 16, and son Julius 14.

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Witcher, a longtime culinary arts teacher, has several other “babies” as well.

The chef has Wing Kitchen locations in Clementon Park & Splash World in Clementon, where he also operates a Chip and Dawg hot dog concept, as well as in the Subaru Park Arena in Chester, Pennsylvania.

The Wing Kitchen brick-and-mortar locations in Turnersville and Glassboro are closed for now. Witcher has plans to reopen the Turnersville location in time for high school football season, he says.

So, what are his plans for this year besides feeling grateful?

“This year for Father’s Day, I’m cooking for my church, the Perfecting Church, as they honor all the men and fathers,” Witcher said. “Then, hopefully, doing absolutely nothing.”

Proud Rutgers graduates

Cherry Hill resident Charles Ashlock, Jr., says this Father’s Day will be his best one yet.

He got to share a really special experience with his son Xavier.

“I will truly enjoy this upcoming Father’s Day because I recently graduated from college with my first born son Xavier Ashlock,” Charles explained. “We both enrolled in community college (Rowan College at Burlington County) for two years to obtain an associate's degree and then we transferred to a four-year college (Rutgers-Camden) to receive a bachelor’s degree.

“I am proud that my son was willing to follow my lead and graduate with honors from the prestigious Rutgers University (with no student loan debt might I add). Happy Father’s Day!”

Ashlock, who works as a fiber optic cable splicer for Verizon, received a Bachelor of Arts in business administration, while his son, who works at Soleply, a high-end sneaker store, got a Bachelor of Science in Marketing. They graduated on May 18.

“Verizon paid for my tuition to go to school,” Charles said. “My local union, CWA 13000 in Pennsylvania, gave Xavier a scholarship to cover the cost of his associate's degree.”

Xavier, who plans to pursue a career in digital/social media marketing, cherishes the experience of going to school with his father. He already had great respect for his father, but even more so now.

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“Going through this journey alongside my dad made me really proud and also strengthened my respect for him,” said Xavier, a Cherry Hill West graduate. “As a full-time student, I knew how challenging classes could get, so seeing him complete courses while simultaneously working full-time showed me the dedication and effort that he put into finishing his degree.

“Our graduation day was a time for celebration as we both moved on to new chapters of our lives. I felt proud of my dad seeing him walk across the stage and accepting his diploma because I knew that he truly earned it and accomplished one of his goals, which is awesome to witness.”

Giving the gift of life

When Jared Copeland thinks back to how things were a year ago, he’s so grateful for how far he and his daughter have come.

The couple, who also has a 9-year-old son, Michael, were hopeful Mia’s kidneys would hold out until a donor came through (prior to Jared Copeland finding out he was a good match), but they were in a race against time. Her kidney function fell below 20% around March 2021 and continued to decline from there.

“She had surgery for a dialysis port and we began peritoneal dialysis at home every night,” Copeland recalled.

“She was also placed on the National Organ Donor list, which meant that we could get a call at any time, and if the kidney was available, generally from a deceased donor, we would have to rush her to the hospital for immediate transplant surgery. We received three such calls … but for whatever reason, the prospective kidney became unavailable or was found to not be compatible for Mia.”

After he and his family were advised that close family member transplants are the most ideal and last the longest with less chance of rejection, Copeland began the course of testing to see if he was a compatible match for his daughter. He endured several months of tests and doctors’ appointments, including CT scans and psychological exams.

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“That was the easy part,” said Copeland. “The hard part was that my surgeon required that I lose 50 pounds before he would remove my kidney for Mia. It took months, but I knew I had to do it for Mia. Once I showed I was losing the weight, the doctors set a date for the surgery, June 22, 2021.

“I spent my Father’s Day (last year), just days before our surgeries, with my family and to anyone else, it would have seemed like just a normal day,” he recalled. “But this was not a normal day. I was scared. So many things could have gone wrong. As a commercial pilot, I anticipate things going wrong and I always know my next course of action. This was different. This was out of my hands.

“The day of the transplant, my wife was at Nemours in Wilmington (Delaware) with Mia waiting for my kidney to arrive from Philadelphia. To speed things up in the transport, my surgeon took my kidney in a cooler to his sports car down the street and drove it himself to Mia. He then stayed to assist Dr. Stephen Dunn in transplanting it into Mia. Everything went perfectly and her new kidney started working immediately.”

Copeland said it wasn’t an easy recovery for him, but his daughter was up and out of bed the very next day. And while she was in a lot of pain, initially, she was able to do more each day.

When he was released from the hospital, the grateful dad was able to visit his daughter at Nemours.

“Seeing her up and smiling, feeling so much better just days after receiving her new kidney, ‘Mr. Kidney’ as we call him, was the very best Father’s Day present I could have ever asked for or expected,” he recalled. “Nearly a year later, Mia continues to thrive and is a happy and super sassy first-grader, and we are looking forward to another Father’s Day.”

Shannon, a lawyer practicing in South Jersey, said they’re always looking for ways to raise awareness about Mia’s disease and the importance of being an organ donor.

There are only about 400 people in the U.S. with their daughter’s disease, and the Copelands waited years for a diagnosis. Shannon said her daughter weighed only 19 pounds at 3½ years old.

“My husband took two months to recover,” she said. “We are so grateful to him, and so lucky that he was a match for her as they have the same blood type. I have a different blood type and also high blood pressure and a heart condition, so I was not able to donate. Father’s Day was June 20 (in 2021) and he donated his kidney on June 22.

“We feel so blessed that the kidney was such a good match and Mia is doing so well now,'' she added. "She does ballet and hip-hop classes and is so active, feeling so much better after being sick for so long.

"And my husband is doing great. We worried as a pilot it could affect his medical (certificate), but it was fine and he continues to be healthy … He sacrificed so much.”

Celeste E. Whittaker is a features reporter for the Courier Post, Daily Journal and Burlington County Times. The South Jersey native started at the CP in 1998 and has covered the Philadelphia 76ers, college and high school sports and has won numerous awards for her work. Reach her at cwhittaker@gannettnj.com.

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This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Father's Day 2022: South Jersey dads share best stories