One day, something awful happens: you crash your bike, get hit by a car, or fall...or maybe a tiny blood vessel in your head bursts. You lose consciousness, and everyone is scared. The ambulance comes. Paramedics have to help you breathe, and try to raise your blood pressure with medication. They rush you to the hospital. Maybe your body looks OK but your brain is injured. At the emergency room, doctors and nurses work frantically to save your life. Your family waits. Once the doctors know more about what's wrong, they will be able to answer your family's questions. Your brain swells, cutting off its own blood supply. Doctors do all they can to reduce the swelling, but sometimes nothing helps. By examinations and testing, they know no blood is going to the brain, so you can't think. You can't keep warm, respond to pain, or move a muscle. Your body is maintained by machines. A ventilator makes your chest rise and fall. It gets your heart enough oxygen to keep beating for a while. A doctor explains to your family that you have died.

But is that the end?

The same day, sixteen other Malaysian also die; they were waiting for donor organs. Your family is asked if you ever talked about donation. The donation occurs quickly (usually in a few hours), and will not significantly delay releasing the body to a funeral home. Because you told your family you wanted to give life, medical staff does testing and interviews your family about your health history, to make sure your organs can be transplanted into others. Did you join a donor registry or sign a donor card? They also learn that major religions support donation, and that there will be no extra costs. Everyone hopes they can, because it is the only good resulting from your tragic death.

After death, your organs deteriorate quickly, so the donation surgery begins very soon. Your body is treated with respect in a sterile operating room, your donated organs and tissues are removed by surgeons and are packed carefully for transportation. The incisions are then closed, as in any other surgery. In an open casket, your body will look the same as if you had not donated. Travelling by ambulance, helicopter, or plane, your organs are transplanted into the grateful recipients within hours. The candidates for your organs were chosen from the more than 20,000 people on the waiting list, according to strict rules on physical matching, medical criteria, waiting time, etc. The organ allocation system is blind to name, race, sex, and wealth.

Your funeral takes place just as if you had not donated. This sad occasion has one bright spot: your family knows that because you were a donor, you saved others' lives. Soon, your family gets a letter about where your organs went. The heart saved the life of a sixteen-year-old boy who hadn�t been out of the hospital in two months, your liver helped a firefighter disabled by liver disease, your lungs were given to two women who were very close to death, and your pancreas helped a diabetic. One kidney flew to a little girl three time zones away, corneas restored sight to two people, and tissue eased the painful recovery of a burn victim. It is a standard, successful treatment for many diseases and conditions.

It's weeks, months, or years later. Everyone still misses you very much. Life isn't the same without you, even though the sun still rises and sets, grass grows, and holidays come and go. She was about to die when your lung came. Now, she can teach her child to ride a bike, spend time with her husband, and go back to work. She says, "I don't know what to say; 'thank you' doesn't seem enough." From time to time, your family may wonder about the recipients of your organs, or want to tell them about your life. Either side can initiate contact through the local donation organization. You are a hero to her, and the six other families (and friends and neighbors) who are thankful you donated. All the people who received your organs get extra years of healthy life. Knowing this makes your family feel a little better. One day, the organization forwards a letter from one of the lung recipients. It's amazing how many live you can touch when you give life!