A couple little hearts on a single person’s driver’s license can mean the world to an entire family.
According to Donate Life New England, 18 people die each day waiting for an organ or tissue transplant.
One’s mother, brother, uncle or best friend may someday need an organ, and there is no telling when they could be able to receive one.
As somebody who knows first-hand what a donated organ can do for a family, I would strongly encourage everybody to educate themselves about the importance of organ donation and hopefully become a donor.
Erin D’Aleo / Senior Designer
Death is not an easy thing to talk about, but unfortunately it goes hand-in-hand with organ donation.
Usually, but not all the time, someone has to pass away to successfully donate an organ.
I would personally love to die with a sense of dignity, knowing that someday, someone may have the chance to see with my corneas, or someone can live a healthy life with my heart, liver or kidney.
When life has a different plan for us, we have the choice to become a blessing in disguise for someone who is hanging on by a thread.
I am not saying I want to die just so I can help others live. I am saying I want to take advantage of a beautiful opportunity someday.
I want to be able to give someone the ultimate gift.
I cannot help but believe that a person’s death could be just a little easier to cope with knowing that a part of that individual is living on.
While these donations must come from a deceased body, many other types of donations do not require death at all.
Hair, blood, bone marrow or a single kidney can all help to save or enrich someone’s life.
A little girl who has lost her hair would love a wig made with someone’s beautiful curls, a man who has lost a lot of blood is hoping for some help and a mother of four needs a kidney to stay alive and with her children.
Although it is hard to imagine, it is happening, and it could be happening to someone close by.
Help that girl, that man and that mother.
But more than anything, make the decision to help someone on a level far beyond expectations.
Give the gift of life.
Jennica Martin can be contacted at jmartin13@keene-equinox.com