Here, Have an Organ

Here, Have an Organ There’s usually a serpentine line snaked out the door at the Department of Motor Vehiclesâ€"at least that’s always been my experience. Burnt into my memory are half-a-lifetime of Kafkaesque memories, nightmarish recollections of time spent waiting for assistance among the zombies and cobwebs at the DMV. Surprisingly, when I visited the DMV recently in Missoula, Montana, there was no line at all. It was a different world: I was helped right away. I didn’t even have to take one of those flimsy paper numbers from the dispenser by the entrance; and to boot, the Missoula DMV employees were fast, fastidious, and friendly. I sat down and filled out the necessary forms to obtain a new driver’s license. These forms seemed attenuated and easier to grasp than the bureaucratic stack I used to wrestle with back in Dayton, Ohio. It was too easy: name, address, DOB, etc., etc. And then my pen stopped as it hovered over the final question: Do you want to be an organ donor? I paused at this simple question. I’d never considered becoming an organ donorâ€"not for lack of caring, but because of sheer ignorance of the statistics. Toward the end of last year, though, my friend Amanda emailed me a similar question: How familiar are you with the organ transplant waiting list? Not at all, I responded. She informed me there’re 117,000 people in the U.S. alone who are waiting for organ transplants right now: 74,000 of them are active, which means that 74,000 people are in critical condition and unable to work, to play with their kids, to eat normally, to walk up a flight of stairs, to pick up a carton of milk at the groceryâ€"you name it. Only about 20,000 of these people will actually receive a transplant in the next year, and it’s not uncommon for a candidate to spend months in a hospital bed waiting for help. So consider this: one organ donor can save up to eighteen lives, and all he or she has to do is check a box on a driver’s license application. For the first time in my life, I checked the “yes” box on the form, and thus I’m now an organ donor. Perhaps you’ll consider becoming one, too. Ryan and I often write about the value of uncovering happiness in life. A large part of that happiness involves contribution. Giving is living, but I’m also comforted to know even when I die, I will still be able to contribute to others. After I take my last breath, my body will be dead, but because of my choiceâ€"my decision to check that affirmative box at the DMVâ€"someone else will live. Find more facts at the United Network for Organ Sharing.