Jad Abumrad

And at this point, she doesn't know Sarah.

She has no concept of this whole search that's happening.

She is just studying eyes.

Now, she studies tumors, but she also needs healthy retinas in order to do her work.

Sad and frustrating, she says.

So she says often when the retinas arrive, which happens maybe once a year, and you pull them out of their packaging.

Like maybe you're trading on other people's misery.

Now, Rupa had never spoken to a parent of any of her samples.

So when she got that email and she was sitting at her computer and she read the email from the company that provided her the sample saying the mother of this sample wants to get in contact with you.

And they ended up eventually talking on the phone.

Like almost by wishing for it, she had made it happen.

Eventually, Sarah and Ross visited Arupa's lab.

She gave them a tour, and she showed them Thomas' retina.

Tiny little vials, maybe a third the size of your pinky, filled with frozen liquid.

Sarah says that throughout the whole process,

you know, of losing a child and then seeing him reclaimed bit by bit by all of these different people.

Yeah.

Big thanks to Michael Vitez for his reporting and to Damio Marchetti for production support and to Latif Nasser for all that help with research.

I'm Jad Abumrad.

I'm Robert Krolwich.