DAPHNE — Mary Trower’s northeastern Kansas home is literally a thousand miles away from the Eastern Shore.

There’s little to almost no chance that she would have met anyone locally.

But fate has a way of bringing folks together, especially those who are meant to know one another, according to Trower.

And she should know.

Trower now has a soft spot for southern Alabama — especially the Mobile Bay area — since it’s where her son Vernon died in a construction accident.

It’s also home to a Daphne man who received a kidney from her son after his unexpected death, she said.

Just knowing that her son’s organ donation helped others live has made her family’s loss a little easier to bear, Trower said.

It has also helped that Daphne businessman Bill Dobbins — along with his wife Anne and son Phillip — reached out to her family, first in gratitude and later to share their lives, she said.

“Really, they are what helped keep me sane, especially in the beginning,” Trower said in a telephone interview.

“Just looking at the photo they sent me, seeing that my son’s organ donation helped their little boy have his daddy, was a Godsend,” she said.

Even though it’s been nearly seven years since Vernon’s death, Trower said she never forgot her initial shock or grief.

A “free spirit” who moved to southern Alabama “on a whim” in 1994, Vernon was helping move a house in Mobile when he died from work-related injuries, she said.

“Vernon was killed when moving a house he was on top of. He had moved the first lines and was moving to the back of the house when he was knocked off by the other lines,” she said.

“He hit the steel beam, which was underneath the house and stuck out from under the house about 6 to 8 feet,” Trower said.

His skull was so badly crushed in the accident that doctors could only sustain him on life support, she said.

The accident occurred on Sept. 21, 2000, and he was buried eight days later in his hometown of Atchison, Kansas, Trower said.

Making the decision to donate his organs wasn’t difficult, especially when the doctor spoke of a friend whose life had been saved this way, she said.

It was also a way to honor Vernon’s spirit and his too-short life, Trower said.

“I’d be the first to admit that he had an onry streak in him that was sometimes a mile wide,” she said with a laugh.

“But Vernon also had a really good heart and he was always the first to help anyone he cared about who had a problem,” Trower said proudly.

Artistic by nature, he enjoyed drawing — especially cartoon characters such as Tweety Bird, she said.

An avid outdoorsman, Vernon was fond of fishing, hunting, riding motorcycles and working outside, Trower said.

“He also liked his beer and he didn’t make any secret of that,” she said with a giggle.

In addition to his parents, he had a brother, two sisters and a son, she said.

Although his head injuries prevented his eyes from being used, his other organs — as well as his tissue — were donated, she said.

“His death was so final, there was no going back. But at least someone else’s life would go on because of him and I think Vernon would have liked that idea,” Trower said.

In addition to Bill Dobbins, Trower said she received thank-you letters from three or four other donor recipients.

“And I’ll always be grateful for and cherish each one of them,” she said with a sigh.

Since this type of correspondence generally goes through a medical liaison, organ donors and recipients don’t often connect personally, Trower said.

That’s why she and her husband Johnny feel so fortunate to have an ongoing relationship with the Dobbins family.

“I first heard from them within the first year of Vernon’s death and now I usually hear from them once or twice a year,” Trower said.

After having gone through this life-altering experience, Trower’s advice to others is “enjoy life and never take it for granted. Get, and give, all the love you can today from your family, because we just don’t get any guarantees in life.”

One of the many reasons Trower is so fond of the Dobbinses is that she feels this kind of love from them, she said.

“I see it in their photos and from the way they write,” Trower said. “You just know it when you feel it.”

Keeping in touch with the Dobbinses is also a way of keeping her son’s memory alive, Trower said.

“When I look at Bill and see what he’s doing with his life — especially when it comes to loving his family so much — I have no doubt that this was the right thing to do,” she said.

Families come in all kinds of different circumstances and Trower takes comfort in knowing that she now has loved ones in Alabama.

“They’re our family too,” she said. “Vernon is a part of him and they are a part of us too.”