Karen Urban hosted a party on Sunday for relatives and friends of her son, CJ, a Ballston Spa High School graduate who died in 2015 of a drug overdose after struggling with heroin and opioid addiction.

Sunday would have been his 28th birthday.

One of the guests at CJ's party was Vanessa, 29, who was born with a genetic kidney disorder. She was on a waiting list for a transplant and received a healthy kidney from CJ. His family decided to donate his organs after he was removed from life support following a vigil of four days. He never regained consciousness and was eventually declared brain-dead in Albany Medical Center's intensive care unit.

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"What alternative was there? Should we have buried him with healthy organs that could save other lives?" his mother asked when we met Friday at a Clifton Park coffee shop. "We feel it was what CJ would have wanted."

A significant increase in organ donations is an unexpected byproduct of an ongoing heroin epidemic that has claimed thousands of young lives, strained health care and law enforcement resources and devastated families.

Nine of 61 organ donors in 2016 died of drug overdoses, a record number, according to the Center for Donation and Transplant in Albany. The not-for-profit organization works with 43 hospitals across the Capital Region and neighboring counties. Three of its organ donors died of drug overdoses in 2013, six in 2015 and 2017 is on pace to break last year's record. It is a national trend. In New England, 27 percent of organ donations in 2016 were from people who died after a drug overdose. That represents a surge of 900 percent since 2010, according to the New England Organ Bank.

"It's one positive thing that has come out of this horrific epidemic," said Shaina Kaye, hospital and community services specialist at the Center for Donation and Transplant in Albany. "It allows families to remember their loved one as a kind and giving soul and not just somebody who battled an addiction."

The organs are tested and screened for diseases common to intravenous drug users, including hepatitis and HIV/AIDS, Kaye said. Potential recipients are informed of the risks and have one hour to accept or pass on the transplant. Occasionally, someone will pass, despite the fact that the organs of young people often have better transplant success than middle-age or senior donors. "They are often young and healthy and haven't done long-term damage to their organs because they've only been addicted for a year or two before they died," Kaye said.

CJ's other kidney went to Lisa, 49, who was diagnosed with kidney disease in her early 20s. She raised a son and a daughter with cerebral palsy and also cared for her disabled husband while on dialysis treatment. "Every day I would pray that I would have enough strength and energy to get up and take care of my family and myself," she wrote in a thank-you letter to Urban. "CJ is my miracle."

CJ's liver extended the life of Larry, who is in his 60s and was diagnosed with a liver disorder at 25. He spent years on a transplant waiting list, doctors exhausted options and he was preparing to die. "Then out of nowhere, you and your family sent me this wonderful gift of life," he wrote to Urban. "It took several months before I could convince myself that I was going to live. All thanks to the generosity of someone that I didn't know."

Receiving heartfelt letters of gratitude and meeting the organ recipients has helped alleviate some of Urban's grief. But nagging questions remain about her son's fatal opioid addiction.

Carmen John Inco III, who preferred to be called CJ, had been working as a clerk at the state comptroller's office for a year when he died. He was well-liked by his coworkers, his mother said. He took classes at Hudson Valley Community College, but dropped out because of severe anxiety. He was diagnosed as a teenager with bipolar disorder. He stopped taking anti-depressants he was prescribed. "He didn't trust psychiatrists or psychologists, so he started self-medicating," Urban said.

CJ liked to skateboard, snowboard and play golf with his younger brother, Nick, and his father, Carmen J. Inco Jr. His parents divorced when CJ was 3 and he was raised by his mother, a database administrator for the state Office of Information Technology Services. CJ remained close to his father and spent weekends at his house.

A few years ago, Urban found pills hidden in a hollowed-out book in his bedroom. He refused to follow psychiatric advice. He hid his suffering from his parents, but occasionally acted out in manic episodes. His mother called the cops to her house more than once. She bailed him out of jail after he was arrested for being drunk and disorderly on his 21st birthday.

A year before his death, CJ overdosed in his bedroom. EMTs, who found needles and drug paraphernalia in his room, revived him with naloxone. He was hospitalized and released a day later. A therapist spent two hours with CJ. "I feel so much better," he told his mother. Her son was offered outpatient treatment, but there was a six-week backlog.

Urban blames herself. "It breaks my heart. A mother's first job is to keep her kids safe," she said. "He was always my sweet boy, so patient and kind and caring."

CJ was found unconscious in the spring of 2015 on the bathroom floor of a Stewart's Shop in Lansingburgh. A cop was waiting to use the bathroom. The door was locked. He summoned firefighters, who broke down the door. His mother has no idea what her son was doing in that neighborhood, except perhaps to buy drugs.

Urban has begun volunteering at the Center for Donation and Transplant. "She's amazing and the strongest person I know," Kaye said. "It's therapy for her."

At the party, Urban embraced Vanessa, the woman who carries her son's kidney. They made pizza the way CJ liked to, with extra cheese and a lot of love.

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Paul Grondahl is director of the New York State Writers Institute and a former Times Union reporter. He can be reached at grondahlpaul@gmail.com.