Are you an ORGAN DONOR?  And whether you are or are not, I have a question for you to consider. . .  IF YOU WERE THE RECIPIENT OF A DONATED ORGAN, WOULD YOU WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR NEW ORGAN'S ORIGINAL OWNER?  If your donor had left a letter for their recipient (you), about their life and views, would you wish to read this?  Why or why not? 

This was a topic of our discussions in the most recent Memento Mori Conversations.  Some people expressed that they would indeed love to know and would read such a letter. Some shared that they would like to have the letter, but would wait a while to "get to know" or "feel the energy of" their new organ before learning more. Some shared that they would prefer not to know anything - either feeling that this knowledge would be irrelevant to their own life, or fearing they might learn something they did not want to know. . .

What if you learned your donor had lived a life you disapproved of?
What if you learned your donor was someone who's standards you might not "live up to"?

In fact, most donors are like the rest of us; having lived lives with both things to be proud of and things they might have wished they did differently. 

And if you feel you WOULD be curious to read such a letter, and you ARE an organ donor, WOULD YOU CONSIDER WRITING SUCH A LETTER FOR A POTENTIAL RECIPIENT OF YOUR ORGANS?

If yes, what might you write about yourself?

Some people in our discussion group shared that they worried that opening up such a vulnerable thing as this letter, could subject them to misunderstanding or even judgement of those who read that letter. The idea of being misunderstood when they were no longer alive to defend themselves felt too open, too risky. . . 

And I would agree - IF one is concerned with how one is perceived, this letter may not be a good plan for you.  It is my opinion (with which you are welcome to agree or disagree) that IF I am to write such a letter, it must be free from any desired outcome for myself.  The reason to write the letter must be as altruistic as I am able to let it be; that is, if I write such a letter, I must write it in the same way I gift my organs - as AN OFFERING TO THE RECIPIENT.  No more, no less. 

And in fact, this is what I decided to do, some years back.

Another concern one participant had was that "I might change my values or views from when I write the letter to when I die".  To this I say, yes, we do grow and change, and our values may change with us. However, at the core of my being I have always been "me". If I go back to my earliest memories (and those who know me know that for whatever weird reason, I have memories that go back ridiculously far), at the very CORE of "me", I have always been the same soul. How I describe things has changed - I have become better at articulating my core self, but that core itself remains as it arrived.  I believe (again, you are welcome to share other viewpoints) that we are as we are at our deepest essence.  Yes, life offers us opportunities to refine and re-define that essence, as we stalk ever more authentic ways to live. But we are who we are. . .

Because this is my belief, and because I myself would want to know my donor, I have written such a letter.  Inspired by one of the wonderful participants in the Memento Mori Conversations group, I share it with you now (yes, this is a very vulnerable thing to share) in the hopes that reading it might help YOU:

A). Clarify for yourself whether you, too might (or might not) wish to write such a thing

B). Maybe take the risk to write a letter even if you decide NOT to share it - or even if you are NOT an organ donor;  Writing a letter encapsulating one's take on living and dying gives one pause to know one's self more deeply, and to consider what one might still wish to grow, change or become in  the remaining years, months, days or moments one still has on Earth.  As a hospice chaplain and death support person, I can share that some of the most powerful and dramatically life-shifting moments people experience can often be at the very end of life; we can ALWAYS grow into our better selves.

Below, I welcome you to read my letter (I have written it in the past tense, assuming it will be read when I am no longer living in my human body); please be gentle on me for it, as you might want others to be gentle upon reading yours.  Think of it simply as "food for thought".  It is my wish that your reading of it my be a part of your own discernment process and/or that of your own path of self-awareness. (Whether reading it guides you to what you may wish - or not wish - to do yourself.)

Much Love to All,
Rev. Maya

Letter to Recipient(s) of my Organ(s) 


 
The letter to follow should be offered to any recipient, or legal guardian of any recipient, of a transplant of any of my body parts: 


 
Dear (Name), 


 
It is my wish that you receive this letter along with the transplant of a part of my body. I want to share a few things with you, because it is my belief and experience that physical matter – in this case a body part – holds a sort of ‘memory’ of things that have taken place near or within that matter in the past. Since a part of what was once me has now become a part of you, I thought you might like to know some of the things that ‘part’ has experienced; in essence, I want to share a bit about me, my life, my points of view. These things may be irrelevant to you, but in case I am right, and some of the ‘energy’ of me begins to influence you, I thought you might be curious to know your new body part’s origin! 

 
First of all, know that however my death may have come to pass, my basic belief is that there is nothing terrible about death itself; I, like my mother before me, see death as a natural and even possibly exciting passage; no more, no less. This means that I have left you my body part/s in a good way – full of the hope, love, excitement, and peace that comes with transitions one does not fear. Think of it like this: Your new body part is fully yours; I have released it and I am delighted to gift it to you! 


 
I am someone who did face a lot of things in my life – scary things, sad things, delightful things, magical things, powerful things, sweet things. . . I think – hope – I met each challenge and each grace with some semblance of courage and openness. I value INTEGRITY above pretty much everything else, though my message and motto was always to LIVE AS LOVE. I worked with Angels and stones, crystal and bones; I did my best to find art in everything I encountered. I saw my purpose and life as being a catalyst for the growth, transformation and healing of all I encountered, most especially myself. I mostly saw my life path as (whenever I could manage to make it so) an offering of my love, creativity, passion; all these in service of the betterment of life on our beautiful and precious Earth. 


 
I strived always to live (in thought and word and deed, to the best of my ability) in alignment with Highest Good and Deepest Love for All That Is. . . and with a wish that every moment of my life in some way be a contribution to the lessening of the suffering of all beings. Of course I am as human as the next person, and thus, to be sure, I often fell short of my mark; I did not always succeed, but I always tried. 

 
It is my experience that everything & everyone, every circumstance that we encounter – is some kind of mirror of what lies within us; thus I worked tirelessly to own my experiences and dig deeply within to change MYSELF any time I saw a need for change in the world around me; the more difficult a person or experience was for me, the deeper within myself I would look for answers. Usually, I found them. 


 
I see conflict – as my Angels and Stone & Plant friends suggested – as an invitation to CREATE; if a situation arises in which I am involved in a conflict, I do my best to see it as a gift – a moment in which I have been invited to create something new – conflict implying that neither my idea nor yours is right; thus let us invent some new idea, as yet unborn. . . this view, to my way of thinking, could make a world full of creative ideas, rather than wars. . . so . . . perhaps, the body part that is now yours holds the energy of all this.  May all your conflicts be blessings of opportunity. 


 
I loved very, very deeply in my life. I loved my parents and siblings, my children and their fathers, my lovers and friends, people I worked with, strangers I met every day; I loved those who misunderstood me too. I loved stones, plants, animals and the solar system. I loved the so-called unseen realms; Goddesses and Gods, Jesus and Allah, the fairies and elves, Angels and all manner of helping spirits. And as I sit here and type, I can say that I love you too, as you are a part of All That Is. Maybe you will ‘feel’ me sending you Light from some Otherworld (what ever you may call it or think the land of death to be). . . and maybe you will not. But know this: if I can will it so, you will live a long and healthy life, so full of love and wealth and abundance of every sort that you, too, will be happy when it is your turn to let go of the physical matter that is your body, some long time from now.
 
In September of 2009, my mother, Petie W. Grillo, was a day or so away from her impending death when she turned away from the wall, where she had been ‘talking’ to her dead mother, Peggy, our ancestor Uncle Waldo (among other bright ones long since passed on), towards those of us in the room still living, and said:
 
“What I wouldn’t give for just ONE MORE day, EVEN THE WORST DAY of my life”
 
I knew the concept here, but to be faced with someone who was really at that gateway, and was saying this so genuinely, touched the core of my being. Since then I remember this message every day (and I imagine I did until the day I died). It is small and simple, and yet it has the power to transform my universe when I recall it, especially when I am unhappy or in unhappy circumstances. I share it with you now, in case you could use the reminder that I myself needed so very often. It is so easy to get lost in comparing our moments to what we imagine they could or should be; but, at least for me, when I compare most of my rough moments to not having any more at all, my pain is transformed to a mysteriously shining gem within a treasured gift: presence and awareness of this time on Earth - My Life, whatever I am experiencing.
 
I wish you every experience and shining moment your soul could dream of – from the fabulous to the mundane – and that you cherish every one of these during your precious time on Earth. 


 
Love Always,
 
Maya Andrea York Grillo Massar*

Prayer for Hospice Workers
Elizabeth Kaeton (modified version)

May the passion you have for life light the compassion you have for others.
May you know that when you do small things with great love you change lives.
May the blessings you receive mean more than the hours you work.
May you remember to keep both feet on the ground while tending to those who have one foot in in the Unknown.
May you be grateful that your daily encounter with death and dying brings you a deeper appreciation of life and living.
May you never lose sight of the fact that what really matters is not the length of life, but the depth of it.
May your work be grounded in the knowledge that grief is the emotional, physical and spiritual expression the priceless gift of love, and that the only cure for grief is grieving (or, the pouring out of that love, through tears)
May you know that while no one may build a monument in your name, the way you make your mark in this life is by erasing the frown on someone’s brow.
And, may you start each day remembering the last words spoken by Steve Jobs before he died: “Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!”
Amen. (May it be so.)

In speaking about not only his own life, but life in general, for all of us, Jobs says:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to somehow TRUST that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” 
 
I agree, and, being not ancient but certainly far enough along to have connected my fair share of dots in life, I can say that I fully lift up
the gift to be had in stepping into, and LIVING from, that place of trust –
and that is when we Trust that we soften our shields,
which is the very thing that allows us to
fully engage in all our precious moments. 

Today, my wish for you is that you trust the dots, as they come, even when their relevance is far from sight, and that somewhere down the line, the connections will reveal themselves. My wish is that that you allow yourself a softening into this trust, and that
each moment you have today –
however it hits you –
is rich
and fully yours.
 
Blessings On Your Day, Dear Friends.