Bittersweet is Shawn Glenn’s new kidney. Yes, he can now live a much longer life, but the donor was his deceased 13-year-old daughter, Symaria.
“I feel guilty. I feel like it’s not okay to be happy. I try to look at it from a positive standpoint … because people at the hospital say, ‘congratulations, you got a kidney.’ But the cost …” Shawn says through tears to Inside Edition, trailing off the end of the sentence.
Symaria loved performing, especially monologues, She had a knack for the stage and wanted to be an actress. One day, the West Palm Beach teenager came home from school complaining of a headache. It wasn’t normal, said her mother.
“She was not just very attentive about theater, acting and drama, but her studies. She was always on top of them. So, telling her to go lay down when she said she had a headache was a big thing for her, because she had homework, and homework has to be done,” her mom, Dhima Martin, tells Inside Edition Digital.
At some point, Symaria became unconscious and was taken to the hospital. She died of a brain bleed.