Choices

Recently I heard about a mother and wife who was in a car crash.  She did not have sufficient brain activity to maintain life.  I know that a sudden life and death situation is very shocking to the point of having difficulty making decisions. In this case, the family were asked about organ donation.  I don't know what they chose.  It is important that all of us over 18 years old let our family and friends know about our wishes.  There are many people on waiting lists for organ donors for lungs, hearts, kidneys, livers, eyes, etc.

This particular woman who was dying was a loving, giving and caring person who may have had donor directives on her driver's license.  However, family members can override any of those wishes.  If there was a conversation about this issue, family members would not have to wonder what your wishes are.  Many lives can be affected for many years ahead as other people fill their lives with hope.

                                                                         To Remember Me
                                                                          by Robert N. Test

The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four  corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and the dying.  At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.  When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine.  And don't call this my deathbed. Let be called the Bed of Life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.
Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.
Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.
Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window.
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all prejudice against my fellow man.
Give my sins to the devil.
Give my soul to God.
If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or work to someone who needs you.
If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.

Check out my book, e book and audio book, "The Dying Teach Us How to Live" and my art gallery at illuminangels.com