I Love.......Organ Donors

I love ORGAN DONORS! My friend Phyllis posted on Facebook this morning that today is National Organ Donors Day. (Yes, she is also the catalyst for yesterday's post....she keeps us apprised of this important stuff!)

I am a big advocate of organ donation. I was even before I knew folks whose lives had been saved by it. But now.....knowing and seeing the new lease on life that people have received. Seeing parents live to raise their children and so their children can know them. Seeing sick children survive to live long lives. Seeing those who have suffered so much gain energy to live the lives they were too sick to live before. I really don't understand how people can say no.

Oh, I understand how it can freak you out. It freaked me out terribly the first time I was asked. I think I was at a bloodmobile, donating a pint. That was easy. The idea of donating my organs? Ummmmm.... I didn't think so. I told them I couldn't sign up for that then, but did take the form they gave me. Actually...they pushed it at me. I didn't have a choice. That form....it haunted me. I just couldn't fill it out. I think I finally threw it away. As I said, the concept freaked me out. I finally agreed to be an organ donor when I was asked during a license renewal. No....there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm. And then they told me I still had to go elsewhere and fill out another form.  (Insert screaming!) But I am an organ donor and my family knows this is my decision. Even if it took a while for me to decide.

Someone told me recently that they were afraid to agree to organ donation because they thought that it may make doctors give up on saving their life a bit faster if they thought they were getting organs. Once again, I understand. I suspect the truth is we have read a lot of books, watched a lot of TV and movies, and have active imaginations. When it gets down to it, I trust in the ferocity of my family. Nobody is getting my organs without getting passed them. Have you met my family? We're a stubborn lot.

My family.....they're the major reason I am such a committed donor. If any of them ever need an organ, I pray even now that they get it. The same for my other loved ones....my dear friends. But even strangers. The thought that I would be buried or cremated (or actually buried in one of those biodegradable containers with a tree planted with me...my current choice) with something that can give someone else life... I can't imagine. The body is going to deteriorate. I won't live there any more. Instead of saying no, isn't it a bit cooler that parts of me stay alive, and dances throughout the world? That some family gets their loved one back? Having had a wonderful life myself, it's pretty incredible to think that someone else can be gifted with that as one of my last acts. I'm just renting this body.....it is owned by God.

So organ donors....today is your day. Celebrate the life you have now....and the lives that parts of you may save one day. You're superheroes. Those who are willing to consider organ donation, learn more and sign up (http://www.organdonor.gov/about/donated.html). If you are an organ donor, tell your family so they don't have to try to read your mind at your death.

Happy Valentines Day, everyone. Love well, love often....accept some of the love that is extended your way. And consider giving the ultimate Valentine....donate your organs when you're through with them.

I Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.