A new year's resolution to consider

I suspect everyone who reads or stumbles across this blog is already registered as an organ donor. If not, I ask respectfully that you please consider becoming registered this coming year.

I tend to have a lot of time on my hands each evening, 30 or 45 minutes or so, when I'm rocking Liam to sleep. One of the things I spend some of that time on at least a few times a week is being mindfully grateful to the family who donated their loved one's lungs for Will's transplant. When I look at Liam fidgeting (or not fidgeting), sleeping (or not sleeping) in my arms, I think about them. I know that the mother and father probably would give anything in the world to have their child back. Or maybe there is a spouse, missing the person they thought they would grow old with. Or children, missing a father. We don't know much about them this family, except that Will's donor was about his age -- early 30s -- at the time of the transplant. But their gift has made everything possible for us. Everything. Even as I'm very, very sure that given the choice they would have saved their person instead of saving Will, when their person was gone, this family chose to save someone else. They chose. They saved.

We've always been registered as organ donors in our family, I remember checking the box for my first driver's license, and when my father died unexpectedly my mother, even in her shock and grief, gave the okay to please donate anything that could be useful. They took corneas, and skin, I think. The point is---once you're dead, you don't need any of your earthly stuff any more. None of it. And other people really, really do need it, to the point of death themselves. So, if you have shied away from registering as a donor in the past, please reconsider. And, if you aren't opposed but just haven't got around to it, well, please get with the program. And please make sure your family knows your intentions. You have no idea what a difference it might make.