My Heart is Yours
“What has been your most important accomplishment in your lifetime?” It was a simple sentence on a veterinary school application, but it turned my life upside down. This question led me to examine my purpose and view of reality, to seek and define who I am. It highlighted something I’ve always believed in and sought after, definition. Clarity and distinction are integral to seeing everything we are and want to be. Internal existence must have meaning and conviction, without it you can not go anywhere.
I believe in inner definition, a forged existence and truth placed down by each of us. We are but formless clay beings grappling with what we are and the external forces seeking to prod at us. Each life has to have definition. Without a solid foundation to build on, we cannot go upward, only sway helplessly in the tidal forces of the world. Not finding our path leads to opaque fog in which we get lost.
I asked myself the school’s question over and over again. Who was I? Where had I been? Unfortunately, I realized I was lacking a true personal accomplishment. Past experiences like graduating high school and getting a first job were perfectly good, but I needed a higher goal that would reflect back on who I was and wanted to become.
We have to find the chosen place for ourselves, for external forces cannot shape us, only weigh us down. To create the “masterpiece,” only internal reckoning can be used to transform or create an individual. Until a person has held true to themselves, defining their places and being, they will not be in peace. I used this restlessness as my motivator. I looked everywhere to complete my ambition, and discovered it in the most unlikely place.
I found life changing inspiration one night on television. It was a moving episode of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” in which a suicidal convict gave up her place on the organ donor list to a young boy. She was arrested for helping others commit suicide to end their pain from life-threatening illness. The boy’s father was also arrested for trying to buy an organ off the black market, though later a perfect kidney match was found. The officers said there wouldn’t be shady purchases if there were enough donations for people to receive. This episode highlighted an important cause to me, and spurred me in a new direction.
What must it be like waiting to die? What must their families go through? Having lost several family members, I know a measure of their pain. It must be amazing to give hope to people in life-threatening conditions, and have a part live on after passing away. A donated heart beats on, giving life to the recipient as its donor fades away underground. I chose the purpose at the end of my life, to be an organ donor. My heart and innermost parts will become theirs, giving them another chance to live. I signed up for the registry and now have the thank you letter from the Secretary of State posted on my bulletin board.
Did I make the right choice? Had I truly measured who I was? I believe a person must stay true and completely understand themselves in order to achieve their “definition.” I examined if this was a challenge I was willing to take on, having parts of me distributed to others when I am a dead husk. I balked for years at organ transplantation because of this image, but I came to see the good it can do, and what someone can achieve through this charity. I realized part of me wants to save others, that it is who I am.
I only paused once while deciding to donate. I sought the approval of my religion, Roman Catholicism. To my joy, Pope John Paul II himself endorsed this “service to human life,” allowing me to complete my goal. I wasn’t asking permission from an authoritative figure, but examining its congruence with my own ideology. Being a spiritual person, my ethics and faith are heavily aligned to my religion. My parents do not like the idea of organ donation, removing parts from a person for someone else. Yet, I went against their judgment and pursued my own purpose. Like many others, I have been under pressure from all sides to follow the standard expectations of forebears and peers. This can squelch a person beneath its weight if they do not have a defined inner substance to stand up with. I made a mortal decision to help me create my own inner structure. I defined a meaning and significance for my life.
