She’s looking for number 100!
100 what, you may ask yourself?
A while ago, we asked the people we love to take a few minutes out of their lives to register to become organ donors. Originally we set our goal at getting 25 people to register. We reached that goal and then decided to double it. Before I knew it, our message had reached 50 people and we decided to double it again. And now, after checking in tonight, we are at 99 people – one person away from reaching this incredible number!
In Ontario, there are no more cards issued with your driver’s licence asking you to indicate whether you wanted to be an organ donor. Now, if you want to be an organ donor, you register online with the Ontario-wide Be A Donor program. You just need to have your health card and 5 minutes of your time and then your choice is linked to the rest of your health card information – simple and straightforward. Beyond that, it means having the conversation with your loved ones, to ensure that your choice is fully understood. Sadly, as we all know, so many deaths happen unexpectedly and we don’t have the chance to work out the logistics – those decisions are left to our friends and family. It can be hard sometimes to have the conversation before hand, it’s such an easy topic to avoid, but it’s such an important one to have. We’ve had it in our family – multiple times in fact, when dealing with health issues that have come up. We know who wants to be an organ donor for life-saving purposes, and who would donate organs to research as well – when my Aunt Gail passed away a few years ago, it was an easy decision because she had been very clear about her wishes. People avoid having the conversation because it’s hard – it’s dealing with unpleasant subject matter, but it’s so much easier to have the conversation now, when that’s all it is – a quick chat – then having to make that decision on someone’s behalf without being sure of what they would want. By doing these two things – registering through Be A Donor and sitting down with your family and talking it out – it’s one less thing that needs to be “decided” – it just becomes fact.
And sometimes we all just need a little fact to hold onto. It’s hard sometimes to watch the news, or listen to people speak, and not feel slightly overwhelmed and powerless. I heard it over and over again with the recent election: why vote when all of the choices are awful? Why should I waste my time when they don’t listen to what I want anyways? This is one thing that we can control, that we have the absolute power in. Beyond that, to hold on to the fact that something you have chosen is going to directly make someone’s (lots of someones!) life better – if you think about it, just allow yourself to really imagine the gift this person will receive – that’s a pretty amazing image to hold on to.
So please, if you’ve reading my other pleas and you haven’t registered yet, just grab your health card and 5 minutes of your time before going to bed tonight and register. If you’ve been reading my pleas and you’ve already registered, then as soon as you stop rolling your eyes and telling me to stop talking about this already, please take that extra 5 minutes to share this post with someone, anyone and hopefully we can hit reach our 100 person goal – and then I can double that again! With your help, we’ve already done it twice and as they always say, “the third time’s the charm”.
Do it for you, do it for someone else, or Do it for Lily.