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Long lost relative gives bittersweet gift in 'beautiful tragedy'

BOSTON — Kris Scola’s cousins all offered to donate a kidney, but it was ultimately the unexpected death of one of them that gave Kris the gift of life.

“It’s a new beginning, it really is,” he said. “I didn’t have a chance to process… Reba and the kidney because it was conflicting emotions.”

Scola left Mass General Hospital after receiving the gift of life in a way he never imagined. His cousin Reba took her own life last week, but her kidney was able to save him.

“Her death was unexpected, but she was an organ donor and was able to donate to Kristoffer,” cousin Marissa Scola said.

Marissa and Kris met after she saw him in a Boston 25 News story when his Lynn home went up in flames last Christmas.

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“If it wasn’t for seeing him on the FOX25 segment, I don’t know if we’d make it to this point,” she said.

In fact, Marissa and her sister Gianna were so excited they called the station.

"I was like Marissa get out here this guy looks like our dad. He could be our brother,” she told Boston 25 News after first meeting Kris. "The eyes and we see the last name is the same as ours."

Kris had been adopted and never met his biological family until Marissa and Gianna reached out to Boston 25 News.

They soon met for the first time, and after that the cousins offered Kris a kidney, he was ecstatic. The process to donate was underway when they got the news that Reba had died on Sunday and that she was a kidney donor.

>>PREVIOUS: Devastating fire leads family to connect for first time

“It’s the true definition of a miracle. I don’t know how else to explain it,” Marissa said.

Kris couldn’t agree more.

“That’s the miracle, when you see people living because of one person.”

Besides helping Kris, Reba's organs saved four other people including a young girl with only hours to live who received her heart.

The family is now hoping the kindness of strangers can help give Reba the funeral she deserves. Learn more by visiting the GoFundMe that has been set up.