Does Donation Personally Apply to Someone in My Life?

        The most pressing of questions, strong enough to sway your decision regardless of how you answer to the others, is “Does donation personally apply to someone in my life?” When you know someone in need of a transplant, see what they physically have to go through every single day, see the emotional toll taken on the family, and scariest off all, see the uncertainty of survival with each passing day, the desperation to help is maddening. In the case of my sister, I can say that if the opportunity presented itself tomorrow, I’d lay down my life for her. That may be extreme for some, but at least the cause of donation seems fathomable when you can picture exactly who you’re helping.
        Here is an excerpt from my essay, written in thought, about the first time I really considered applying for the organ donor's registry:

I’ve just passed my road test. My dad and I race over to Secretary of State and when I’m finally next in line to get my picture taken for my driver’s license, my excitement overcomes my ability to smile coolly. The adrenaline slowly ebbs away as I’m handed forms of endless questions and signature requests. I pause at a question unlike the rest—unrelated to my physical ability to drive. It asks “Would you like to be added to the Organ Donors Registry or Tissue Donors Registry?” I look at my dad questioningly, but to no accord, for he says he is not allowed to tell me how to answer. On one hand I think: well I’ve heard that in Islam, when one dies they must be returned to the earth as whole as possible. Since removing organs purposely before burial would technically conflict with the supposed guideline, I’m hesitant to say yes. On the other hand I think: my big sister has been suffering with Chronic Kidney Failure for a decade, undergoing daily twelve hour dialysis treatments, unpredictable surgeries, and uncertainty towards a transplant. Since most of my family is ineligible as match to donate a kidney to her, she depends on the organs of deceased donors. My hesitation is gone. I check “yes.” 

On the car ride home, my father looked at me with surprise, asking with his eyes how I could answer so quickly. I said, “How arrogant are we to pray that an organ comes to (insert sister’s name here), with the possibility that the donor might have to die in order for it to happen, when we ourselves aren’t willing to offer that hope for someone else by being on the registry?” With eyes wide open at my outspokenness, my father choked back a tear. Then he smiled, letting out a deep sigh of, what I assume to be, pride.

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