The greatest gift that one can give to anybody else is to lay down one's life for somebody else. To rephrase it, the greatest gift that one can give to another is life itself. And so for many patients awaiting the gift of life- an organ, a kidney, a heart, a liver, lie at a fork in their life's paths. One path has death as its destiny, the other has hope marked along the way. Waiting on death row, hoping for a reprieve.
We were moved today by a story of a young budding journalist who received the gift of a kidney from her brother. In this case however, it was a living donor, a perfectly healthy person. Agreed, it takes lots of guts but then again love conquers all.
The HOTA may on the surface appear draconian and cruel. Unfortunately, it has been surfaced for the wrong reasons- adverse publicity focusing only on the negative aspects of this law. We must think for a moment of those many on 'death row' hoping and praying for that gift of life. Most are young, some in the prime of life, all wishing for just that one extra day of precious life. Their families too, praying and hoping and wishing.
The greatest legacy that we can leave behind is that gift of life. In dying we would have given life to somebody else. Part of us lives on in another person. Imagine and contemplate that. Otherwise at death, our bodies and organs corrupt and wastes away anyway.
HOTA gives us the opportunity to make that last act of kindness and give the greatest gift of all, the gift of life.
