Published:
01/06/2012 12:55pm
Turn grief into a Gift . . . and if you’ve received the Gift of Life, pay it forward
The New Year is a time of reflection and making changes to bring about a better new year than the past year. Losing loved ones adds the difficult task of figuring out how to cope during the New Year and years to come.
When I lost my father he was just 52 years old and there was a list of people that I felt God could have taken instead of my father. Each holiday felt like my shopping list was so short–even though there was only one name removed. My father-in-law perhaps suffered the most. His birthday was the same day as my father’s. We’d have a birthday dinner for both of them and I would buy similar gifts in different colors–it was fun. But after my father died, I couldn’t bring myself to shop for September 23.
Finally I rationalized in my mind that I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself about having lost my father. There were many women that I knew who would never know what it was like to have a father like mine. The old saying that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, is hard to grasp–AND SOMETHING YOU NEVER WANT TO HEAR RIGHT AFTER LOSING SOMEONE. But in time, I got it. The impact of my father’s love for me has lasted me and I believe will continue to last for the rest of my life. People (particularly my son) are probably so tired of hearing me say, “What my father used to say about that is . . .”
It’s a good thing that I learned that lesson before losing my mother. By this time I had received the Gift of Life twice and survived the West Nile virus. And so what brought me peace was that “things” were not my mother nor did they represent her. But the impact that she had on my life and the lives of so many others, is her legacy.
My brother and I were also fortunate in that we were able to carry out her final wishes and that was to donate her organs to people who needed them. It is interesting that we did not discuss her wishes during or after our kidney transplant. But we both knew growing up that both our parents wanted to donate their organs–it was something that they discussed with us as children.
We missed the opportunity when our father died, however we were able to oblige our mother. Even though it wasn’t my organs that were donated, that we completed my mother’s wishes, felt like I was paying it forward. One day I will ACTUALLY pay it forward since I am a registered organ donor.
Even though they are not likely to use my brother’s transplanted kidney in my body or my new pancreas, I don’t want to make a medical decision that I’m not qualified to make. The way I figure it, let me donate the organs when I’m through with them and let the doctors decide who may be able to use them.
IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED AN ORGAN TRANSPLANT, REGISTER TO BECOME AN ORGAN DONOR AND PAY IT FORWARD!
