The two men who should be dead finally met.
Jim Wahl stood on the stage Saturday, right hand on his brow, shielding the light as he tried to spot the stranger.
Brandon Madden stood up from a table in the ballroom of the Hyatt downtown and, at 7:15 p.m., approached the stage.
“Hell with a handshake,” Wahl said. “We’re way past that.”
Three years ago, Wahl, a St. Louis municipal judge, received a life-saving bone marrow transplant from the donor Madden. But they’d never met until Saturday, with an embrace watched by the watery eyes of hundreds at an event for Siteman Cancer Center.