So Hope Will Live
8×10 Inches
So Hope Will Live
Every April is Organ Donation Month. And every year the medical professionals get better and better at doing organ transplant surgery, and every year the after-care, including managing medications to prevent rejection, gets better as well. This is too important to ignore, because some day, you or one of your loved ones may need a heart, or a kidney, or a liver, or a cornea, or tissue. Without donors . . . well, you get it. Now register at the link below, and tell your friends or family members to register too. It costs you nothing for either the registration or the donation, in the event that it comes to that. You might save a life! And in that way, your life can go on living, even when you’re gone.
According to Donate Life.net (where you can register to be a donor-hint! hint!) over 28,000 organ transplants were performed in 2012. There were over 14,000 organ donors that year, which means that there was an average of two organs donated per donor. There were 46,000 cornea transplants in 2012, and one million tissue transplants are done each year.
And yet 120,000 people or more wait with fear and as much patience as they can muster. And so do their families. We can all help. Sign up today.
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Over the next few days, I will also run “The Legacy” and “Have a Heart,” to encourage organ donation. The other day, “So Hope Will Live” was read with my permission at a Celebration event in Arizona which was attended by about 300 people, including organ recipients and donor families. It was read by a woman who is herself a recipient and who is so very grateful to her donor and donor family. She survives thanks to their kindness and generosity. And for those who need an organ or tissue, hope is often all they have, sometimes for a long time. Let’s shorten that time together!
So Hope Will Live is available in three formats:
1) As an etched (20×16 inches) picture poem. Click here to see it;
2) As a 4×6 inch framed photo poem. Click here to see it;
3) It is now also available as a download at a reduced price in an 8×10 inch version ($2.99) and a 4×6 inch version ($1.99). This offer is for a limited time only. Click here to link to the downloadable version. With the download, you can print the piece on your printer, or have it printed at a retail outlet. It is a “thank you” piece from a recipient to a donor. Feel free to give one to your donor family. I think they’ll like it. There will be a one per customer limit. If you need more than one, contact me via the Contact page.
Below is the last stanza of the poem. I would love to hear about your experiences as either a recipient or a donor or donor family member. Feel free to leave a comment, or to comment on the poem.
“Know that I am grateful
for the life you gave to me.
May my life give you light
wherever you may be.
And may my life bring comfort
from the pain that hurts you so:
we are strangers now a family,
wherever we may go.
And may the life that lives in me
shine a light so all can see
that life goes on, ironically,
when we choose to donate life,
so hope will live, eternally.”
Copyright Daniel Mark Extrom 2009-2014. All rights reserved.
Dear Mr Mark I have read your poem ‘ So Hope will live’ and seek permission to have this read at NHS Tayside’s Organ Donation Memorial Event to be held on 11 May in Dundee Scotland.