dona la vida | donere life | donirajte zivot | donate life | My Open Letter.

Many cadaveric organ recipients live with tremendous guilt. It's not uncommon for them to have the train of thought of "I'm alive because someone else isn't." 
But it’s not a cause-and-effect. One person doesn’t die because another person in the world needs a heart. Or a kidney. Or a liver. Or a lung. We all have an appointed time to be born and a time to die.
I know this. But not all of life is so black-and-white.

Donor, you are gone from this life - and in your death you have gifted so many with miracles beyond imagination - and because of that, I need to say a few things to you.

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Dear Donor,

You gave my sister life.
God gave her life first - He is the Creator of all things. He created her knowing that at some point in her life, she would face this challenge. 
And He knew about you. 
He knew there would be you, our hero.

I want you to know, donor. I want you to understand that “thank you” will never be enough for you. I hope you’re resting in the arms of Jesus, I hope you’re at peace. Because you are our angel. You gave her life again through your selfless gift, and we’ll never forget. 

I thought that I would write down what lived on in your death. Because parts of you are still pumping, living, breathing in other people’s bodies. 
In my sister’s body. 
You are a hero, of the highest degree. I wish I could pin a badge of honor on your chest. Because you deserve every accolade.

I know this wouldn’t give much comfort to the people that lost you that October night. Furthermore, I know our story is only a small piece of the selfless legacy you left behind, but it’s everything to me.

We don’t know a lot about you. You were from New England. You were about 18 years old. You were too young to die. We don’t know the exact circumstances surrounding your death. 
For some reason, I’ve called you “Stephen” in my head for quite some time now. I don’t know why - we never had a clue as to your name. I wonder sometimes why that name has stuck with me just as much as the pain of the night when I almost lost everything, the night I very nearly lost my mind.

My sister’s first liver transplant - a portion of a donor liver from her best friend - had begun to fail only hours before your gift arrived. We were heartbroken. Oh, I will never forget that feeling. I wouldn’t allow myself to consciously think of losing her, because I think something in me would have snapped. But it was still there, clawing at the back of my mind. 

I’m ashamed at my reaction to hearing there was a cadaveric liver for Cait. 
Your liver. 
We weren’t going to run out of time. She would have another surgery. 
She would have another chance.
I started weeping with joy, with fear, and that feels so wrong to say. So wrong.  Please forgive me. 
But I threw my arms over my sister, weak and pale in her Stryker bed, and started babbling incoherently, out of my mind with the delicious drunkenness of hope and life.
I didn’t think about you in that moment; not like I should have. I hope you would have forgiven me for that. I think of you now, though.

I think about how you made life possible for my sister. For my family. For me. Because if she hadn’t lived, I honestly don’t know if I would have had the strength to go on, either. People tell me I would have, but deep down, I don’t know. A very large piece of me would have died, too.
I think about life.
And I think about how you made life possible for all of the other people you donated to. Your liver, your lungs, your kidneys, your heart.
Your liver is cleaning my sister’s blood, producing proteins, and keeping her thriving. Your lungs are taking deep breaths somewhere out there, your kidneys are filtering blood, your beautiful heart is beating in someone’s chest.

“He was young,” Ellen, the transplant coordinator, told us quietly, respectfully, in the halls of Blake 6, seeing the traces of hope on our tired, salt-streaked faces.
You were young. 
You were...and are...so much more, too.
Selfless.
Brave.
Thoughtful.
Loving. 
Giving.
You understood that life reached beyond what you could see. You were an organ donor. You made the decision that if your life ended, you wanted to give yourself to others. And that is a rare and beautiful thing.

I’m so sorry you didn’t get to do everything you wanted to with your life. I’m so sorry your life was cut short. But I want to thank you, thank you with all that is in me, for not taking all the life in your body with you when you went to rest. You are my hero.

Praise God, my sister’s new liver is working beautifully. It will be 6 years this October since you and your family said yes to life. Because of you, we have experienced joys we feared we’d never feel. 

My sister was married less than 6 months after her transplant. To a man she’d loved for years. Her eyes glowed white with life and warm with love on that brisk March day, her wedding day. She cried while the stylist, one of our dear friends, curled her hair the morning of her wedding. She wept for you, for what you lost and what she gained. She said she knew it would hit her, on that day of all days. It was a day she wasn’t sure she’d ever live to see. And she did, because of you.

21 months later, my sister gave birth to a little girl that changed our lives forever. Noa Janelle-Louise. And she’s still changing us. She’s beautiful, sassy, strong, loud, and kind. She was the sweetest newborn baby, the most gorgeous infant, a curious, spunky 1 year-old. At 2 years old, she loved grilled cheese, ice cream, being outside, wearing scarves, hiding in clothing racks at Target. Now, at 3, she is drawing, coloring, speaking in sentences more typical of a first grader. She memorizes books. She loves cooking shows and she thinks horses are the coolest. She adores her baby brother, "Lincy".  As for baby brother Lincoln - he was born last November, and he's our everything. He’s such a happy boy - most happy when he’s on his Pappa’s knee, walking on his own with his lion push-toy, or when he’s eating a snack. That boy loves good food, the grass under his chubby bare feet and his Mum-Mum and Pappa's doggies. Their Momma is their entire world. Their Daddy is wrapped around their little fingers. Oh, those kids are pure sunshine, a sunshine I never would have known without your gift.

You changed everything.

Because of you, I am a donor. When I die, every part of my body that can be saved will live on in someone else. Like you did. Because of you, many of my family members have registered to be organ donors that wouldn't have otherwise.

There is a quote I absolutely love - I bought a small cloth banner in Washington, DC with these words, and they’re tacked to my corkboard in my bedroom: 

In Remembrance There Is Life.

I can’t bring you back.
But we can remember you and honor you. 
And we will always remember. 

When I’m holding my nephew as he sleeps - that little breath of bliss amidst the chaos that IS a 9-month-old, I’ll remember you. Every time I laugh with or fight with my sister and see passion in her eyes, I’ll remember. When I’m breathing in the sweet smell of my niece’s blonde hair, I’ll remember you. When Cait stands with me on my wedding day, I’ll remember why she’s there. 

Because of Jesus, because of His miracles, and because of your choice to donate life, we were literally taken from death to life that October.

To the parents, the family of this young man - wherever you are, you who lost a love on that October night - thank you. Your arms are empty, while mine are full - and I promise I will never forget the poignancy and utter heartache & beauty of this. This selfless act of your son, your brother, your grandson, your friend, your nephew - to donate life - will not be forgotten.

You are all are forever loved by our family. By me. Thank you.

With love & gratefulness,
Erica