Durban — Life is beautiful, man. You never know when it’ll give you your next gift.
Some are little ones you have to be on alert for. They suddenly pop into a day and you think how – for a breath or an hour or the whole day – happy that small gift made you.
Other days, they’re giant, slap-you-around-your-head, make-you-cry, change-your-life ones.
This was one of those, and it involves a little story.
Holidays are when people who love each other gather away from their busyness, to remember how lucky they are to have those people in their lives or rediscover what they love about one another.
But for so many others, a cloud hangs over the joy as they miss lost loved ones.
November to February has become a gloomy time for our diminishing family because of losses over this period: granddad, granny, mom, dads, close friends…
Three years ago, our family were dealt a crippling double blow when we lost two beloved people in little over a month. Sean – husband, father, son, brother and loyal friend – died suddenly of a heart attack. Then Jan – wife, mother, daughter, beloved sister and loyal friend – died just as unexpectedly of a brain haemorrhage.
We were devastated as the ICU doctors told us Jan was brain dead and we began following her living will instructions to let her slip away and donate her organs and tissue. As good in death as she was in life, she wanted to help people in desperate need.
We didn’t understand it then, but it would, over time, prove to be a small source of comfort, knowing she was still “in the world”. On every anniversary, we remembered there were families and friends celebrating another year of a life for someone who had teetered on the brink before Jan’s death.
Anonymity and privacy are fiercely guarded by the dedicated people who organise organ donations. There is no contact, apart from letting donor families know how many people had been helped. They also let families know when donors as a whole are recognised, like the memorial garden in Durban’s Botanic Gardens where Jan is honoured alongside others with beautiful hand-painted rocks in a quiet place of reflection.
This year was different. We were sent screen shots – again the emphasis is on anonymity, with no possible identifiers – of a recipient’s thoughts about the “angel” donor who saved a life.
The words opened floods of tears, good ones. We could “see” how a life had been saved and a family were celebrating the day by honouring their donor. Jan was still making her mark on the world.
The recipient’s words were gifts of the change-your-world kind. We had known in our heads that people were alive because of Jan, but it was an impersonal fact.
Now, because this stranger had materialised, and we learnt of his journey from having little hope of survival to getting “the call” and having a successful transplant, it became a spiritual connection.
Anonymity is vital to the donor programme and is an unbreakable condition. But knowing something about this stranger’s life has brought comfort to us. Next year when we face the dreaded anniversary, we will have a sprinkling of joy to celebrate a “new” life.
As hard as it is, people should consider organ donation. Even if it’s secret, it brings comfort and joy to donor and recipient families alike.
Independent on Saturday