This evening Ashley and I were invited to a small gathering at a local university. A group of students had brought in someone to talk to them about organ donation, and she invited Ashley to tell her story.
I never tire of watching Ashley tell others about her transplant. She will tell her story to anyone who will listen. And she doesn’t tell it from a dramatic standpoint; it’s very matter-of-fact and informational. She’s not there to manipulate people into becoming organ-donors. She merely wants the facts of her story and her life to give people a real, live example of the gift that is organ donation.
Emphasis on the live.
But tonight was very different. Before Ashley talked, the family of a donor told their story. The mother cried a couple of times, but her message – that her son got the chance to be a hero, to literally save five lives – came through clearly. And it was a little difficult, to listen to her tell what is a lovely and sad story about her young son’s death, only to sit there next to someone who was there because of someone else’s similarly tragic death. Dylan’s mom even tearfully pointed out that the five people he saved would get to celebrate the birthdays and weddings that they now will never get to enjoy. And so to think about how we’re getting married in a few months was…unfair. To them.
I’ve spent so much time with Ashley, listening to her repeatedly talk about organ-donation as such a great thing – and it is – that somehow until tonight it never really sank in that someone had to die. I mean, academically, I was totally aware of that. But somewhere out there, a young girl’s parents sometimes cry because Ashley is going to have the wedding their daughter will never get.
And I don’t even know how to begin to thank them. Or really to even comes to terms with that.
It’s hard to know that the life you enjoy comes at the expense of someone else’s sorrow. I’m sure Ashley has been more than aware of that for nearly 4.5 years now. But I never really understood what that meant until tonight.
