Organ Donation

Originally Posted by Trieah

I've always said, that when I die, just dump my body in the ground somewhere. Heck, dump it in the trash, for all I care. I won't be needing it anymore, so. . . whatever.

I have to disapprove of this attitude. How can we respect the body in life if we don't do the same in death?

This is a topic that's close to my heart.

Someone very, very dear to me passed suddenly in 2001. He was only 45 and his death was completely unexpected. I identified his body for the Police only a few hours after he died and I believe he was truly gone - that vitality that made him so very alive and larger-than-life was totally absent. I'd seen dead bodies before but only at viewings at funerals a few days after death, so this was the first I'd seen who was still physically 'warm' and that's what struck me - the absence.

This person had always ticked the organ donation box on his driver's licence so when they took him into the morgue and recorded his death, one of the Organ Donation people called immediately asking if they had our permission to harvest his organs. We said yes, completely unhesitant. It felt like the right thing to do and that we were abiding by his wishes.

The Organ Donation people were amazing - I actually don't know how we would have gotten through the following weeks without their support. Okay, maybe I'm straying away from the spiritual side of the topic but I actually believe that the rituals and processes we go through after someone passes has everything to do with those that remain on the physical plane and little or nothing to do with the spirit of the person who passed... Anyway, our Organ Donation representative visited us almost daily, constantly updated us with the process, she even came with us the first time we were able to see his body before the funeral to provide comfort and to answer any questions we had. It was all done in the most loving, respectful, and generous way possible.

After the funeral was over and we'd had time to grieve, they were in contact again to thank us and to send us a seedling of a special breed of rose bred purely for the families of organ donors, to be planted as a rememberance. I went to a donor/recipient family ceremony where the names of donors have been inscribed onto a plaque next to a gorgeous lake near the centre of my city and the love and gratitude that flows through an event like that can't be measured. I'm teary now just recalling it.

Organ donation is much, much more than the ripping out of a liver from a dead body and implanting into another. It IS a gift - I've spoken to recipients myself and they confirm this, 100 times over. The viable parts harvested from my loved one were his bone marrow and his kidneys, and that bone marrow has gone on to help people suffering leukaemia (it is a notoriously difficult and painful procedure to harvest bone marrow from someone living). He was such a loving, generous, amazing man that would give his shirt to another in the freezing cold so I have no doubt that he would be at peace with parts of himself, no longer needed by him, going to others in need.

I wonder if those 'opting out' have had someone die who was an organ donor, and if they had any issue with donation? And if so, why?

Originally Posted by pre-dawn

I have to disapprove of this attitude. How can we respect the body in life if we don't do the same in death?

You can disapprove all you want, but it's not gonna change my mind about what happens to what I'll be leaving behind after I die. I have no desire to create some kind of fear based stress over what'll happen to my body once I'm gone. When this body dies, my soul is going straight back home, not hanging around my dead body making sure its getting treated right. Now that may sound rather cold and emotionless to someone who doesn't feel the same way I do, but the fact remains, I surly can't take my body with me when I die. To me, it is just a shell that houses my soul.

Ok, so maybe I'm not some kind of health nut who treats their body as their own personal temple. But, I am someone who has been threatened over and over again, with promises of a brutal death and my body hidden somewhere where my family will never find it. And yeah, the fear of that happening kept me trapped inside that seemingly hopeless situation for a very long time. But to tell you the truth, I finally found all the strength I needed to get out of that situation, once I stopped being so afraid of what could happen to me. I have absolutely no guarantee that my body is going to be treated with respect after I'm dead. So why make a fuss over something I may not even have any control over? That's not necessarily showing disrespect to this body. But it is having enough inner strength to know that no matter what happens to this body, I won't be living in fear of what could happen.

Trieah, good for you. I like your attitude.

Originally Posted by Trieah

You can disapprove all you want, but it's not gonna change my mind about what happens to what I'll be leaving behind after I die. I have no desire to create some kind of fear based stress over what'll happen to my body once I'm gone.

Did I say anything about fear? I speak about how we look at the body of the living and dead now, I ask a question about each one of us looks at it.

You have given your answer. I shall not analyse or discuss it, everybody will form their own thoughts.

[Lynn]

Hello

Interesting point here HOW do we see the body. Some in life never connect with that body we try and try to change it or form it surically to what we want, we diet, and we wear cloths that try to shape it. BUT in the end its the body we have. Why is it so hard to just embrace the body.

Woman look at me funny when I say I would LOVe a new frame but I would keep all me roundy bits. Too there are one's that feel being 6 foot is not fun....I embrace being tall.

When I look to the many funerals I have been to and the many where the body was laid out in an open casket the time is taken to make them look better than they looked living. Even after an organ donation the familhy gets the body back as great care is taken to sticch them back up. I remember one that I went to the service and while I know much to them was taken from the inside I still only say the person I knew there. I remember the words said abouif they how they so wanted to help other's in life....and did also in death.

The greatest GIFT one can leave family is a "Living Will" so that that one's requests are well known.....and hopefuly respected.


Lynn