Jeff

I don’t do bucket lists, FB likes, or retweet something that I find inspiring.  I do big things; like donating a kidney.  And big things sometime make me stop and question things.  It took me more than a year to figure out why I wanted to donate a kidney.

What kind of world did I want to live in?  I didn’t want to just repost something from FB.  I wanted to do something.  I wanted to live in a world in which this is how people treated each other. I wanted change, not just with myself, but on a scale that is frightening. Change that spoke not only to the core of who we are, but also why we are here.

Did I need to be special to donate?  As it was looking like I was going to be approved one of the questions my social worker asked was, “Have you told your ex-wife(mom of my kids)?”  I skirted the issue, “Do I have to?”  “We recommend it,” she said.  I sent a text that night to my ex with the expectation that she wouldn’t understand me, or what I was doing.  We had had our problems, and I figured she’d point out how wrong this was.  She replied with, “That is the most incredible decision I’ve ever heard of.”  At that point I realized I didn’t have to be special to donate.

I am more powerful than I realize.  We can solve a lot of problems on this planet, but we haven’t solved kidney disease.  I can’t drop money into a cup and expect this to be cured.  It still takes another human being to help.

By the way, my one kidney donation started a chain that allowed three recipients to get kidneys.  Sometimes we really are bigger than we truly realize.