off immediately; Mike asked Pam to go out that very night. “I said, ‘I just met you!’” Pam recalled. But soon they were seeing each other regularly. Mike worked with computers and later was a fire inspector for the Township of Mahwah. He was a volunteer with the Mahwah Fire Department and a volunteer driver for Mahwah Ambulance and Rescue Squad Co. #1. He also served as Pipe Sergeant with the Bergen County Firefighters Pipe Band. The couple married in 2006; Mike died 22 months later. They were together just five years. “But the way we lived and loved each other gave us more happiness than many people experience in a lifetime,” Pam recalls. This will not be the first time the “I Am Drozd” team will participate in the 5K. Last year, 38 people came out to honor Mike, each wearing the Hawaiian shirts Mike loved. Recently, team members gathered in Mahwah to talk about this year’s event. “We are running again to honor Mike,” said Mike's brother, Christopher Drozd. “If you ever needed anything, Mike was there. At his wake, we heard story after story of how Mike helped people. A friend had a leak on his roof during a storm, and Mike showed up with a ladder and a tarp to help out – during the storm! Who does that?” Christopher Drozd said all Mike’s siblings now are registered organ and tissue donors. “That’s another legacy of my brother,” he said.
The “I Am Drozd” team comprises family members on both sides, as well as friends, including many who knew Mike from his varied work as a volunteer. Doug Burns knew Mike from the pipe band, noting Pam introduced him to NJ Sharing Network. “Being a donor is something Members of the ‘I am Drozd’ team at last year's 5K, wearing the Hawaiian shirts that you don't think about, but Mike loved. now we all know so much “You take an athlete who might never be more about organ donation. It’s as simple as checking off yes on your driver’s license,” able to play a sport again because of a torn he said. ACL. With tissue donation, that person can get While some on the team are learning his or her life back,” Pam said. about donation, Pam’s cousin, Peggy Simurra, already understood the need for organ transplants and tissue donation. She is a nurse with experience working with dialysis patients. She also donated her own kidney to the husband of a friend. “Donation has always been something I believe in,” Peggy said. “And I am happy that Mike is putting some focus on tissue donation as well. I think people know much less about the value of tissue donation, which can enhance the lives of so many people.” Organ donation may get more headlines. But Pam said she, too, is happy that her husband’s story can help spread the word about tissue donation.
At the 5K, Mike’s friends and family – some who met each other only through the 5K Walk/Race – shared stories of his life, another way the 5K event is keeping Mike’s legacy alive. “When we get together, everybody has a chance to talk about Mike,” said Pat Malone, Pam’s father. Pam’s brother, Tim Malone, recalled when he and Mike both shaved their heads to raise money for a children’s cancer charity. “Nobody was surprised that Mike was a registered donor,” said Tim Malone. “He was the type of person who would drop everything for everybody else. That’s the kind of guy he was – and now he’s doing things for others, for all of us, even after he’s gone.”
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