For a week now, I have been thinking of what I could write for this week’s article. Earlier today I thought of writing about going to the cemetery, but decided against it. So, I went through my quote books to find something to put here that someone else had written. And this is one of the things I found. It was written by Robert N. Test (1926-1994) and is about organ donation at the time of death.
“When my life has stopped, do not instill artificial life into my body by use of a machine.
1. Give my sight to someone who has never seen a sunrise.
2. Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but pain
3. Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine.
4. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
5. Explore every corner of my brain.
6. Take my cells and let them grow to help a speechless boy or a deaf girl be able to speak and hear.
7. Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If by chance you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.
If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.”
The above was a quote from my quote book I filled back in 2011. This past Christmas, I was given a bulletin board for my “office,” and I have been putting special pictures up, one by one. Now I have 10 pictures. Two are of my sister Ann, who died this past Aug. 3. The pictures each show her when she was younger and full of life. I wanted a good picture to take to the nursing home to put up on the wall so that the nurses could see how she looked when she was well. Another is of our mother, on her 80th birthday. Everyone was sitting around a big table in my dining room from the house across the street. Ann is standing beside her and has just placed the birthday cake in front of her for her to blow out the candles.
I want to add that I have a very old black and white picture of the seven of us “kids” when we were young back in 1945. In that picture are my two older sisters who died in the past six years. Their names were Marilyn and Ginny.
To end this article, I would like to use a quote that showed up and I don’t know who said it, but it speaks volumes to me: “There will come a time when thoughts of your loved ones will bring a smile to your face before it brings a tear to your eye.”
