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
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.
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Give my sight to the man
who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman. |
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Give my blood to the teen-ager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. |
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Give
my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. |
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Take
my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to
make a crippled child walk. |
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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. |
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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. 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.
By Robert N. Test
