Leaving a Legacy - The Follow Up

Thanks for the interest

Thanks to you all for your comments and views on the subject of organ donation. It's good to talk about these issues and thus prevent them from being somehow distasteful and to be hidden away - in our minds if nothing else.

To Angela I must say this:

I'm slightly surprised that you would take exception to me using your family relationships as an example. I can't see that there would be any doubt of my intentions here - and I hope that it would be completely obvious that I was not wishing any ill on you or your loved ones. Quite the opposite. I'm truly sorry if I caused offence in any way. I was merely putting a "What if?" situation to you, so that you had a chance to explore how you would feel if you were in a position where you were unable to ignore the issue of organ donation.

The fact that it touched a nerve is the very reason to use examples like that. They are the only ones that matter. When it is you and yours involved - it brings it home like nothing else can. That said, I'm sure they're all fine and I hope and pray they will never either require a transplant, or be in a position to actually be a donor.

When I signed up...

In my own experience with going on the organ donor register, I will say that it is a slightly strange feeling filling out the online application form. It is a bit creepy because it connects you with your own death in a way that I guess we'd all prefer not to. Like Ian, I found that I certainly did feel a bit weird. That said, I felt good when I had done it. I doubt anything of mine will be much use to anyone when I am gone, but on the off-chance that it is they are very welcome to it.

At that point, I certainly won't have any further use for the bits that were my body. I mean, by then, I'll be right in the middle of discovering whether everything I have believed about God all my life is actually true or not. Which, I suppose, means I'll either be tremendously happy and fulfilled or just gone forever and lost in oblivion. Either that, of course, or due to a slightly garbled reading of the truth about forgiveness - rotting in the pit of hell in eternal torment.

I wish my mind didn't scream at me at times like this: "Now, that sounds more like it!".

Comments

[Angela]

Ok. I suppose I over-reacted. Still feel sort of on the fence or more on the 'not' side. I'm a bit with Rebecca - I don't carry a card cos I have an unexplained fear - it's probably death I fear and that's connected with the organ donation??? Maybe I should ask John Cooper, he's the psychologist!! I'll stick with being a blood donor - it's my 'little bit' for others. I know you don't wish me or mine any harm. If I do ignore donor donation it's cos I'm frightened of it and the situation we'd be in if we needed it.

[nell]

do you have stop your diet?