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Legacy of Life Scholarship Essay
"Maria, I'm going to run to the restroom. Are you ok filling out that form?"
"Yup," Maria said not looking up from the papers in her lap. She chewed on the
tip of her pen, scanning the page. A grey, shaded box half way down the paper caught
her eye. Organ Donor. "Organ Donor?" she wondered. "Am I even old enough to be an
organ donor?" She looked around for a DMV employee but the woman that had been
standing behind the counter when she first walked in had disappeared. The only other
person in the room was a boy who looked about Maria's age. His white-blonde head
was ducked down over his forms.
"Hi," Maria said tentatively. The boy looked up and smiled. "Are you getting your
license too?" she asked.
"My permit," he said
"Oh! Ok. Well, do you know what we're supposed to put in the Organ Donor
box?"
"I assume you check yes or leave it blank," he said, watching her carefully.
"Right," Maria glanced back down at the box. Her hand hovered over the space.
Then she left the box blank and flipped the page.
"You left it blank?" the boy asked. He was leaning over slightly, peering at her
forms.
"Yes." Maria pulled the forms. "It's not like it really matters." she said defensively.
"I mean, I'm only seventeen. And if I want to be an organ donor when I'm older I can just
sign up online or something." She looked at him.
"Ok." the boy said after a moment. He turned away again. Maria returned to her
forms but then turned to the boy again.
"Besides, I don't think I'd want to be an organ donor anyway." She said. The boy
looked up again.
"How come?" he asked.
"Well, say I got into an accident or something. And I'm dying and they take me to
the hospital. I really doubt the doctors are going to try as hard to save me if they see
that I'm an organ donor. If there's a good chance I'm going to die anyway? Why would
they? It's scary."
"They wouldn't do that," he said firmly.
"How do you know?" she asked.
"Their job is to save your life. You really think they're just going to sit their and let
you die? They didn't become doctors to recover organs, they became doctors to help
people. Think about it. You're an emergency room doctor and they bring in a severely
injured person - it could be anyone - say an elderly man. He's inches away from death.
Are you thinking "Oh, he would have died soon anyway. We might as well just let him
pass on and take his organs for someone else," or are you thinking that you're going to
do everything in your power to save his life, to reunite him with his family, to make sure
he gets as long as possible on earth? You see what I mean?" he asked.
Maria nodded, considering this.
"What about families, though?" she asked. "What if your family wanted an open
casket funeral but they couldn't because your body was all cut up?"
"Nobody would be able to tell," he said. "It would be completely unnoticeable." he
paused. "I just don't understand -" he started. "It's just, if you could save a life, just one
life, why wouldn't you? If you had the power to give a little girl the chance to grow up
and fall in love, or make it possible for a young man to go to college, if you had the
power to allow a mother to live to see all of her child's birthdays, not just "one more", if
you could do all those things, why wouldn't you? We have life inside of us. Why wouldn't
you want to give it to someone else when you couldn't use it anymore?" He sat staring
intensely at her, his hands clenched tightly in his lap. After a moment she asked,
"How do you know so much about all of this?"
The boy looked away. He turned back towards her like he was going to answer,
but before he got the chance, the DMV woman returned.
"David Hemming?" she called. The boy stood up with his papers and hurried over
to the counter. She watched him go, stilled by his unexpected words.
Her mother returned and she hurried to finish the paper work. By the time Maria
finished, the boy was gone. She handed the woman at the counter her forms, a check
marked firmly over the "yes" box where it asks about organ donation.
***
A few months later:
The doctors did everything they could.
The base of splintered tree was was covered in flowers, cards, and candles.
When the doctors turned to Maria's mother, she nodded her approval of the "yes" on
Maria's card.
A family dressed in black.
Maria's hear beat once in the body of a boy about Maria's age.
No one noticed a boy with white-blonde hair slip a note into the mailbox in front of
Maria's house. It read:
Thank you for giving me the life you could no longer use. It means more than I could say.
-David
Work Cited
"Busting the Myths about Organ Donation." Organ Donation Myths and Misconceptions.
Gift of Life Donor Program. Web. 31 Mar. 2012. <http://www.donors1.org/learn/
myths/>.
"Learn the Facts | Donatelife.net." Donate Life America. Donate Life America. Web. 31
Mar. 2012. <http://donatelife.net/understanding-donation/learn-the-facts/>.