I specifically chose to run this story to highlight Father’s Day on Sunday.There’s a 30-year-old Bermudian man who goes about his life quietly on the Island. He doesn’t look to seek out praise. He doesn’t want to be in any sort of limelight. He almost wouldn’t talk to me for this article because to his mind what he did was not to be bragged about or even applauded it was “just what families do stick together”.On January 27, three days before he turned 30, Calvin Ming III gave one of his kidneys to his father heart transplant recipient, Calvin Ming, Jr.“He needed help to survive. I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t do this for their father,” he said. “That’s what families do stick together.”The elder Mr Ming is a much loved and well-known community service worker. He’s a Government Probation Officer, member of the Salvation Army and was an Executive Director of NADA, the forerunner to the National Drugs Commission.Mr Ming had a heart transplant in April 1993 at the age of 46. The surgery was carried out at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania.Just as all transplant patients, he was put on a daily regimen of drugs to suppress his immune system.This is necessary because the body will naturally fight to kill any cell it recognises as not being its own. These drugs are called immunosuppressants.Mr Ming received the heart of a professional high diver in the 1993 transplant operation. His doctors felt it was a success. But they underestimated the real success of the procedure.“They kept telling me: ‘You’re good for eight years maybe ten’,” he said. But it’s been 18 years since the operation. This long period of time on the immunosuppressant drugs took its toll on Mr Ming’s kidneys.The kidneys are the body’s natural filters of toxins. “The immunosuppresants that I took for the heart transplant actually started to destroy my kidneys,” he said. “As a diabetic that evolved things to the point where I had to go on dialysis for almost three years.”Three times a week for three and a half hours at a time, Mr Ming had his blood flushed clean in the Beresford Swan Dialysis Unit of King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.He said the experience was good for him because he always felt better after a dialysis treatment. But his doctors told him he needed a kidney and so he worked hard to be on the transplant donor list.This involved losing weight and keeping to a healthy diet.One of his brothers overseas was set to donate one of his kidneys, but after months of trying to meet the requirements, he reached a weight loss plateau and was ineligible.“He got very disappointed with himself,” said Mr Ming of his brother.“We were waiting for a donor when Cal (his son) told me he wanted to go for an evaluation,” said Mr Ming.Having already explained to his children his concern that they might be putting their own lives in jeopardy by donating a kidney to him, Mr Ming said he was touched at his son’s insistence and his argument that his mind was already made up.A student Colonel at Florida Air Academy, Mr Ming said his son has that military training where once he makes a decision, he follows through with it.“I gave him the contact details for Maryanne at the dialysis unit here,” said Mr Ming. “He met with her, she explained things to him and said we are not going to do anything right now because she said he needed to understand completely what he was doing. She gave him some information to read but he told her he didn’t need to read them, that he knew what he was doing, and that he wanted to start his evaluation,” said Mr Ming.His son said the numerous questions to ascertain the certainty of his decision, actually started to annoy him. “They had to go through their steps, but if I make a decision then I do it,’ he said. They were feeling me out to see if I could handle being a donor.”And the then 29-year-old “handled it well”. He admits he experienced excruciating pain when his muscles cramped after the operation, but he claims the operation has made him healthier.“My life has improved,” he said. “I am forced to live healthy. I am forced to exercise and eat right because bad habits can affect your kidney,” he said. “This has worked out for the best.”Cal Ming the son, gave this response when asked how he decided to donate one of his kidneys to his father:“I have children. He has a lot more to give to them in the experience of being a grandfather. These are supposed to be his golden years of life where he is supposed to be relaxed instead of spending five to six hours a day at dialysis.“I see no reason not give to him. He is family and it’s not going to harm me in any way. It’s just a body part.“I have two and can live with one. I have two eyes and can live with one. I’m fine it’s not a big deal.”But his father feels it was and said the experience has made his already tightly knit family, even closer and more grateful.