How can the murder of a referee in Arkansas bring joy in Pasadena?

How can something that moves at the speed of a funeral procession make hearts race?

How can a parade float with a clock going backward make you feel so good about the future?

This is how:

On the night of April 16, 2010, Arkansas State student Michael (Rudy) Gilmore, just home from working his two jobs, one at Walmart and one refereeing intramurals, was shot in the head in his apartment. Who murdered him is still a mystery.

Who'd want to kill Rudy?

"If you needed a dime, Rudy would give you the whole quarter," says his mother, Jerlene.

Rudy's 17-year-old sister, Kaneisha, was poleaxed with grief. Everybody loved Rudy, but none more than she. Rudy had promised to be her escort for homecoming court this football season.

But Rudy wasn't there anymore. He was all over America. He had checked the donor box on his driver's license, so his lungs went here, his kidneys there, and his pancreas somewhere else. His heart stayed close, though. It went to a man named Sammy Robinson, 44, in nearby Hughes, Ark., who'd been waiting for eight months.

"Rudy saved my life," Sammy says. "I told his mom, 'I know you lost a son. But I want you to know you've gained another.'"

Original photo and the floragraph of Rudy Gilmore that will grace the side of the Donate Life float in the Rose Bowl parade on Monday. Rick Reilly

When Kaneisha met Sammy, she was poleaxed again. Sammy was nearly a doppelganger of her brother. Which gave Kaneisha an idea. "Could Mr. Sammy take Rudy's place at homecoming?" she asked her mother.

Robinson cried, bought a brand-new white suit for the occasion, showed up on the field that night and said, "I just know you're going to get homecoming queen."

And she did.

This coming Monday morning, Jerlene and Kaneisha will be in Pasadena when the rolling Kleenex machine known as the Donate Life float goes by in the 123rd Rose Parade.

It will have Rudy's floragraph on its side, along with those of 71 others who helped others live even as they died. Twenty-eight living persons will ride on top, grateful for those gifts.

In the NFL season of 1988, no rookie made prettier football music than Elbert (Ickey) Woods, the Cincinnati Bengals running back who rushed for more than 1,000 yards, popularized the Ickey Shuffle and led the Bengals to the Super Bowl.

What people didn't know about Woods was that he had asthma. So it was no surprise his 16-year-old football star son, Jovante, had it, too. And it was no surprise on Aug. 11, 2010, that Jovante had an attack when he got home after football practice. What was a surprise was that his inhaler was out of medicine.

Jovante gasped for his little brother to run down the street to a teammate's house and borrow his inhaler. But by the time his brother got back, Jovante was brain dead. That's when Ickey got one more surprise. Jovante, a 3.8 GPA student, had checked the donor box on his brand-new driver's license.