Today, I received two cotton swabs in the mail. No, it’s not a reminder to clean my ears, but part of my Be The Match kit, which will add me to the thousands of other people who are already on the bone marrow donor registry.
From their website: “For the thousands of people diagnosed every year with life-threatening blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, a cure exists. Over the past 30 years Be The Match®, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP), has managed the largest and most diverse marrow registry in the world. We work every day to save lives through transplant.”
You might be asking why I decided to become a bone marrow donor at 44 years old. It’s simple really.
My life is insanely blessed. Even with all the trials and tribulations I’ve encountered over the years, I’m beyond fortunate and take all those good fortunes for granted more times than I care to admit.
We’ve all become so accustomed to hoarding our blessings, myself included. When you actually sit back and tabulate them all, it leaves you feeling not only grateful, but guilty at the same time.
We’ve become a society brainwashed into believing we must continually amass more and more “stuff” in order to compete with our friends, family and neighbors for superiority.
We spend so much time “giving” to ourselves, that we fail to realize we already have more than we need and should be sharing our blessings with others.
For as Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
As I get older and continue to struggle for a life of simplicity and humility in our self-serving society, this is an opportunity for me to do something good where it really counts.
And if you need another reason why I’m becoming a bone marrow donor, I offer this statement from the Be The Match website: “If you could offer hope to someone dying from cancer, would you?”
Find out if you’re eligible to register today and do something good for someone else.
