Tight end was open -- to helping brother

Tom Graham remembered how he and his wife Marilyn talked with all the kids -- Philip, Jason, Ebony, and fraternal twins Joshua and Daniel -- in their Denver-area home. They talked about how they would proceed, and the father remembers the poignant words of one of his youngest sons.

"Daniel stepped up and said, 'If my number is up, then he gets my kidney,' " he recalled. "There was some concern about that. Daniel is the type of person that if he determines what he's going to do, it's going to be a big fight for him to say no."

Reflecting on that night, the 28-year-old Patriots tight end recalled that there was no hesitation, despite resistance from his parents.

"This is something I do for a living," he said, "but there are bigger issues outside of football we're dealing with."

As it turned out, Daniel wasn't the best match for his brother. His mother was.

And on Tuesday, the long-awaited transplant is scheduled to take place. After playing in today's highly anticipated game against the Bears at Gillette Stadium, Graham will join his family at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis for one of the biggest days of their lives.

"Though we talk to a lot of people who feel there is a cloud over us, we have gone through that phase of it," Tom Graham said. "We're at the stage now where we are happy we are coming to a point of time where Jason's quality of life will be improved.

"The circumstances might not be most desirable, but the results we're hoping for are right ahead of us and anticipated."

Faith of the family Tom and Marilyn Graham met when they were students at the University of Oregon, and they wed entering Tom's senior year in 1971. He calls it the greatest thing that ever has happened to him.

A linebacker in his playing days, Tom still holds the Oregon record for career tackles and was selected in the fourth round of the 1972 NFL draft by the Denver Broncos. Even when Tom's professional career took him to San Diego (1975-77) and Buffalo (1978), the couple always knew they would settle in Denver. What stood out to Tom was that the area was a great place to raise kids, better than where he grew up in Harbor City, Calif.