Gift of Life Donation Program

Many people achieve an added level of selfless satisfaction when preplanning by combining organ donation with cremation. The donation procedure consists of filling out and carrying a donor card which conforms to the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. Potential donors must also remember to make their loved ones aware of their wishes because surgeons cannot harvest organs for transplant if the surviving next of kin does not agree with the decision of the deceased.

A teenage recipient of two corneal transplants expressed her appreciation by means of a “Dear Abby” letter:

“I want to address my unknown donors: I never knew you, yet your generosity changed my life. You died, yet a part of you still lives. You gave of yourself. It was the last thing you gave, and you gave it to someone you didn’t even know. My life is so different because of you. Every day I am reminded of the gift you gave me. With the help of God you created a miracle – the miracle of sight.”

Robert Test, in hoping that his deathbed be transformed into a “bed of life” wrote:

“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 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…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. If by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.”

Test, and thousands like him, continue to live in the minds and bodies made better by their poignant preplanning.
 
Click here for more information on the Gift of Life Organ Donation Program.