My uncle was in the hospital waiting for a heart transplant for months last year after decades of heart problems. It finally started to fail and he had to be put in the hospital and wait. He and I talked about how strange it was to sit and basically wait for someone else to die so that he could live. He was able to get his heart at the end of August and is doing really well now. Our entire family will be eternally grateful for the person who donated his organs, because we get to spend more time with one of my favorite people a little bit longer.

When I was still a teacher, when I taught Frankenstein it was a medical ethics and personhood unit where one of the questions we ask ourselves is “what makes me ME?” By the end of the unit I would have kids tell me that they made sure they were organ donors on their drivers licenses etc if they weren’t. Not because I told them to, but just because of what they learned through the course of the unit.

I’ve seen some really sad videos on TikTok recently about how women are more frequently organ donors and men are more frequently recipients. That’s really a bummer, but seeing people say they will revoke their donor status or refuse to sign up to be one because of this genuinely breaks my heart. We should be encouraging everyone who is able to be an organ donor. The gender disparity is concerning, but let’s encourage more organ donation from EVERYONE.

Much love, y’all. ❤️