NEVER TOO LATE

It's never too late just to say it,
To reach across boundaries and care
To tell from your heart how you value
Their gift, their decision to share.

To say it was priceless won't do it
To say it brought life from despair
To try to convey what a difference -
Their gift of new life answered prayer.

I've thought many times how I'd tell them
The words that I'd use to describe
Rebirth and renewal and hope born once more
But I held back and kept them inside.

I thought of their pain and their sorrow
Their loved one, the loss and their tears
Not wanting to intrude on their grieving
I've left it unwritten these years

Perhaps they're still waiting for comfort
That you or I only can share
Perhaps just a thank you will bless them
Giving healing and comfort and care.

It's never too late to say thank you.

~A heart transplant recipient's wife






TO REMEMBER ME
By Robert Test

The day will come when my body will lie upon a white
sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located
in a hospital busily occupied with living and the dying. At a
certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has
ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my
life has stopped.

When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life
into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my
deathbed. Let it be called the Bed of Life, and let my body
be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to the man who has never seen a
sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a
woman.

Give my heart to a person whose own heart has
caused nothing but endless days of pain.

Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled
from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live
to see his grandchildren play.

Give my kidneys to one who depends on a
machine to exist from week to week.

Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and
nerve in my body and find a way to make a
crippled child walk.

Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if
necessary, and let them grow so that, someday, a
speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat
and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against
her window.

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to
the winds to help the flowers grow.

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my
weaknesses and all prejudice against my fellow
man.

Give my sins to the devil.

Give my soul to God.

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.





TO AN ORGAN DONOR
By Frances Talbott-White

We may not have been on the same path before,
but today you walk with me.
We may not have sung the same songs before,
but today you sing with me.
You may have been younger or older,
darker or lighter, larger or smaller than I,
but a part of you has helped to make me whole.

If I could speak to those who mourn for you,
I'd try to tell them how your light still shines
on every page I read or write,
in every smiling face I see.
We may not have been on the same path before,
but today you walk with me.




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