A beautiful day outdoors and
inside my heart. I've had a nasty sinus
headache all day today, but it's still ok.
This came in today's mail via the Iowa Donor Network:
Dear Donor Family,
We are writing to thank you for the kind and generous
gift of tissue donation from your loved one.
We are aware it was a difficult decision to make and are truly sorry for
your loss. Your decision to donate has
and will make an impact on our 12 year old son's life. Our son was diagnosed with rapidly
progressing scoliosis at the end of the school year. The hopes for a "normal" summer of
swimming, playing, riding bkies, and playing tackle football came to a
halt. Spinal fusion and rod placement
was performed only three weeks after we realized that something was "not
right" with our son's back. His
recovery from surgery went extremely well.
Your donation made our son's surgery a success. He will be limited in activities for about
6 months and has been able to return to
school. Our son is a smart, loving child
who hopes to become a pilot someday. He
is an A honor student and loves anything about airplanes.
Interestingly. we were not aware that he was receiving
donor tissue during surgery. We found
this out upon discharge from the hospital when they handed us the donor
"thank you" card. Immediately,
we felt a sense of gratitude that words cannot express. Our family will never forget the sacrifice
that you had to make. We are grateful
for the gift you gave our child and to our family. Every time we look at his scar, we will
remember the sacrifice that was made.
Sincerely,
The Recipient Family
The didn't provide a name or
address so I'll never be able to write back like I could one of the corneal
recipients. But I will forever treasure
this letter. As I wrote on Facebook,
Paul had a number of active sons, too. I
know he'd be delighted to know that his body, no longer needed, is able to help
another family's son.
I don't know about referring
to it as a "sacrifice," though.
It's not like Paul needed his body parts anymore. The only difficult part about the whole
process was answering the myriad of questions from the donor facility within
that first hour or so after Paul's death.
The way they harvest skin, I
was told, is that, with Paul, anyway, they took some from his legs and torso, I
believe. They then treat it with some
sort of chemicals and it "grows."
Modern medicine is SO cool sometimes.
So, anyway, I'm smiling
today. And Readers - sign up to donate
your organs. There's no reason not to,
not when there is such a need. Paul
looked perfectly fine in his casket and there was no way for anyone to tell
that he was divested of his eyes, some veins and skin. And if he hadn't looked fine and we'd had to
have a closed casket as a result - that would have been ok, too, since the
greater good would have been done.
***************************
Speaking of Paul...I got his
grave decorated this week. When Sam and
I were at Hobby Lobby last week we picked out some things. I threw in a few Halloween decorations, too,
since Paul especially enjoyed the holiday.
I'll take those down after the 31st and leave the fall decorations. I have a friend whose husband died and she
told me that every year she places creepy hands and other things around his
site because he loved Halloween, too. I
can't quite bring myself to do that.
Honestly, I'm more queasy about Halloween since Paul's death than I ever
was before. I guess once you bury
someone death isn't such a light matter anymore.
Sam found a little skeleton
he wanted to put on the grave, but I just couldn't quite stomach the idea. All I could think about was Paul decomposing
into a skeletal state. I have no idea
where that process is right now. I have
a feeling he's still pretty intact, actually.
But I nixed the skeleton. Then
Sam found some foam spiders so we went with those instead.
*************************
I just received word tonight
that my uncle died. My cousin facebooked
me about it. I'm kind of surprised
because he was quite a bit younger than his parents (my grandparents) were when
they died. I guess heredity isn't
everything. I'd like to make it to the
funeral, if possible, for my cousins' sakes,
but I'm not sure. This next week
is going to be awfully busy. The funeral
may not even be in the state, anyway. He
hasn't lived here for decades. I don't
know why the news makes me feel sad. I
had no relationship with man at all, other than to know he was my uncle. But just the same, there is part of me that
feels bad. I suspect some of it is
because I'm awfully tired right now. But
also, I'm more sensitive to the subject of death since Paul died. Anytime anyone goes, it's kind of like
rubbing up against those sensitive nerve endings.
******************************
David swapped out the storm
door screen for the glass door we use for cold weather. I was SO impressed by this! I didn't ask him to do it, but he just took
it upon himself and did the job just fine.
He's growing up.
********************************
Lizzie, on the other hand...I
had one morning this week where I had to get out of the house pretty early for
an appointment. I was not real happy
when I got up at 6:30 to get Ben fed
and off to school to discover the girls curled up together on the couch,
playing the ipad! I shooed them back to
bed but it wasn't too much later I heard a crash from their room. Still, I wasn't overly concerned, until
Lizzie came downstairs and let me know her bedroom floor was full of glass
now. She had decided to turn off the fan
from her bunk bed, using the pull strings on the contraption. This decision
spelled the end for the glass light globe.
The night before she has asked if she got too cold if it was ok if she
turned off the fan. I told her,
"sure," thinking she would simply flip the light switch. No, that would not be illogical - or as much
fun. It's much better to balance
precariously on a bed and try-y-y to reach a 5" string dangling underneath
rotating blades.
"Well, I did it
before!" was her sputtering response when I asked why on earth she thought
this was a good and smart decision.
Argh...
********************************
This week Paul's brother,
Michael, shot himself in the leg by accident when a handgun misfired (?) or
something. I'm not sure of all the
details. Will called him and got the
details after we learned about the accident on Facebook. He's going to be fine, but he did break his
lower leg and had to have surgery to implant some rods and plates. Paul would have had such a field day
teasing him about this! Those boys grew
up handling firearms from the time they were little guys and so for him to have
this accident is really surprising since they are (were) all so skilled at
handling them. But anyway, I was
mentioning to Ben that his uncle had been shot by accident. Ben looked at me and asked, "Well, when
is his funeral?" I guess I wasn't
clear enough when telling him the story.
Poor kid. He's so accepting of death now.
****************************************
David had a really, really
sore leg, himself (not as sore as Michaels, though, I'm sure) after playing
flag football Monday night. I think he said it came into contact with another
player's face. It gradually began to feel better over the next couple of
days. David expressed disappointment at
that and commented that he wished he had torn a ligament or something just so
he could brag about playing "really rough football!" Oh, brother...
******************************
Sunday I was driving the
Littles to a birthday party when they wanted to know how babies are made. Why do they want to know about these kind of
things when I'm driving? Or ever? I gave them my kid-friendly version of the
facts of life, but that's not good enough for my scientific, logical,
left-brained nearly 7 year old. From
there, the discussion rapidly moved
into the arena of kissing, since I may
or may not have led them to believe that prolonged bouts of that lead to
babies. Lizzie and Sam wanted to know if
it's ok to kiss before marriage. We were
talking about that for awhile. Then Sam
said in his very decisive manner, "Well, when I get a girlfriend someday,
I'm just going to have certain times I kiss her. I'm going to need some privacy for that,
Mom." I'll try to remember that.
*********************************
It's after 11 and I am so, so
tired. I was awake a little bit after 6
this morning with a nasty sinus headache.
I got so tired that I actually fell asleep for about a half hour before
supper - unheard of. I do NOT take naps
during the week. I can't. I've tried, but it doesn't work. But it was enough to give me enough oomph to
make it this late. David has a friend
staying for a couple of days and Will is home.
We all went to Pleasantville's homecoming game. They did well - 48 to 6. Tomorrow is the church's fall festival, which
ought to be fun.
It will be Sunday and I'll
hit the ground running for another week of life. My different life. My busy life.
My good life.
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