To Remember Me

If you had read 'The Star' newspaper today, you'd have come across an article titled "The Circle of Life" (Starmag, page 23). I was deeply touched by this piece of article.

Robert Noel Test. He wrote an essay entitled To Remember Me. This essay drew international notice and inspire organ donors all over the world today. Let me share this essay with all of you, for those who did not read the papers today.

To Remember Me

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 the 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 instil 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 the one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.

Take my bones, every muscle, every fibre 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 scartter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grom.

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weakness and all my 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.

*I hope this essay will inspire you. I do not know if someday I will be one lucky organ donor. Maybe someday, when I start to reminisce and come across this post...I might make my decision and be one. Whatever will come, will come. Now that I'm still young, I'll just keep on fighting...