It was a sunny autumnal day with a touch of morning frost in Asheville, North Carolina. I was sipping apple juice at the donor refreshment table at the Red Cross. She looked to be in her late sixties, petite with coarse gray hair pulled back with a faux tortoiseshell barrette, wrinkled brow over welling hazel eyes. She sat by me, eyeing her small-framed husband rising from his donation gurney. He held up his thin arm as the nurse wrapped the inner area of his elbow with royal purple gauze.