|
TO REMEMBER ME
by Robert N. Test
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, do not attempt to instill artificial
life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't
call this my deathbed. 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 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 she
might live to see her grandchildren play. Give my
kidneys to one who depends 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 or rain against her
window. 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 sins to the devil. Give my soul to God.
If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a
kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do
all I have asked, I will live forever. |
