“TO REMEMBER ME:I WILL LIVE FOREVER”
Written by ROBERT NOEL TEST (1926-1994)
The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.
When that happens, please do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don’t call this my deathbed. Rather let it be called the bed of life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby’s face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.
Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he too might live to see his grandchildren play.
Give my kidneys to one who has depended on a machine to exist from week to week.
Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body, and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window.
Then burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all prejudice against my fellow man.
Give my sins to the devil, but give my soul to God.
Then if, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. And if you do all I have asked, I will live, I will live forever.
MP3 for download HERE.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Noel Test was one of the pioneers in promoting organ and tissue donations. In 1976, he wrote an essay titled “To Remember Me”. It was first published in The Cincinnati Post and later in Ann Landers’ column, as well as in Reader’s Digest.
Available at: http://www.organdonorawareness.org/. Accessed on August 5, 2021.
Video available at: https://youtu.be/AG0bVOp-VMA. Narrated by Wink Martindale. Accessed on August 5, 2021.
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