In late March, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage with Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Lucile Packard’s Children’s Hospital to help drum up support for a proposed bill in California that would require individuals receiving their license to indicate whether or not they would like to be organ donors. As it stands now, drivers in California have to take pro-active steps to sign up as organ donors.

Addressing the crowd, Jobs was uncharacteristically open about his liver transplant, and recounted just how close to dying he actually was.

“I was almost one of the ones that died waiting for a liver in California last year,” Jobs said, ”there were simply not enough livers in California to go around, and my doctors here advised me to enroll in a transplant program in Memphis, where the supply-demand ratio of livers is more favorable than it is in California.”

“I was very fortunate,” Jobs continued, “Many others died waiting to receive one.”

Earlier this week, a Silicon Alley Insider reader named James emailed Jobs to thank him for his efforts in spreading awareness about the importance of organ donations and rallying up support for the proposed law.

His email reads:

Thank you, you’re awesome. I lost my girlfriend on April 23, 2008 from melanoma which spread rapidly to her liver, 48 hours after we found out it spread to her liver she sadly passed away….she was only 24 and I think about her every day. I am so grateful you took time out to do this. My girlfriend and I are from Cupertino, since childhood, and it’s really nice to see the hometown hero take time out to do this. Once again, thank you so much. Sincerely, James

Jobs soon replied,

Your most welcome, James. I’m sorry about your girlfriend. Life is fragile. Steve Sent from my iPad

SAI acknowledges the grammatical error in Jobs’ email, but after investigating the headers, they’re confident that this email did, in fact, come from Jobs himself.

In an email to SAI, James explains why chose to make his correspondence with Jobs public: