(That dark spot under my eye is a sunspot/beauty mark/freckle…I had for many years now lol In some pictures, like this one, it doesn’t look right. But I don’t want to filter it out because it’s part of my face in reality)
Found & Lost 🖤
The skyscrapers Seemed to rise especially high On the evening I first found her Kissing passion into the sky As if it were their queen Worshipped And drowned In pure adoration
Stars dappled the sky as night continued Like silvery kisses scattered about All through the night No match for the light In her amber eyes As they lit up with that same passion the stars did But were more intense
The city came to life In the sticky Summer air Laughter and chit-chat echoed through the streets As people made their way to restaurants and clubs and bars and bowling alleys And traffic sped through the streets And the city lights twinkled Like lost songs Playing among the stars
I felt each symphony Deep into my bones
Finding her felt like home There was a sense of impending exulansis seeping into my skin As I watched her move like the wind And become the night Knowing then I would forever Be marked By a thing that escapes words Leaving only traces Of something unidentifiable Traveling up my spine And lingering on my supple flesh Seeping into the pores and tissue Penetrating bone Becoming a permanent part of me No less essential than my very dna
An echo of an ethereal kind of beauty Not of this dimension Perfumes all of my nights As my mind drifts back To that moment I laid eyes on her Taking in every curve of her body Imagining the softness of her skin Beneath my fingertips
Standing intoxicated Devouring her beauty With the kind of primitive greed Of someone trapped in a desert For too long, dying of thirst and suddenly finding a creek of sapphire blue or emerald green, glistening in the dark of night
And there are hints of that sense of belonging Still dwelling in a place in me I can’t recognize Along with that aching burn of rejection Sinking deeper and deeper into the belly Into a seemingly endless abyss of suffocating sorrow
Suddenly I blinked And she was lost In that one infinitesimal moment Ripped out of my arms By the rapacious hands of reality As my seemingly perpetual daydream came to an end
And I woke up into the harshness Of what is true Reverie shattered by a truth I was never ready or willing to accept A truth that burns in me with the passion of a thousand suns in the middle of an August afternoon In the Northern Hemisphere
Now I stand On a sticky Summer night That takes me back To that day I found her When the skyscrapers seemed A tad taller, and the stars shone a bit brighter
Perfumed in that inexplicable beauty That still leaves traces of her Throughout my existence And I taste the silvery Kiss of the stars As I catch them in my eyes
Hints of wonder In the midst of a deep longing For a thing that existed Only in my fantasies But was the realest thing I have ever known
Every February 14th, we celebrate & honor organ donors (and donor families), registered donors, & the beautiful, selfless gift they give or intend to give. The gift of life. ❤️
Yes!
I said yes to organ donation in life & in death.
I am a living donor, a registered potential deceased donor, the friend of an organ recipient, and the daughter of a parent with organ failure, in urgent need of a liver transplant. So, organ donation is something I’m touched by, directly, but even before that, I was a passionate advocate for organ donation.
That’s why I chose to become a living donor when I had no ties to it, personally, yet. I just always thought it’s the most beautiful, ultimate act of love to another human, giving a literal piece of ourselves. Since I was a little girl, I wanted to be an organ (and blood) donor.
Over 100,000 people are waiting for a life-saving organ.
Only around 1%-2% of the population becomes a deceased organ donor, and less than 0.1% of the general population are living donors.
Approximately 29% of organ donors are living ones.
Around 60% are registered as potential deceased donors (We need more!!). And over 90% of the population supports organ donation, including all major religions.
I am a volunteer organ donor ambassador with the Gift of Life Program here in Philadelphia. I did the training in 2024, the same year I donated my kidney. I work to bring visibility to organ donation and educate people on the topic.
I LOVE my volunteer job. I love being part of this community, doing work that helps literally save lives, and the whole donor/transplant community. I have the privilege of meeting and working with many recipients/recipient families, donor families, those waiting for a new organ, and other living donors.
Recently, I attended one of their summits where I got this sign.
Here’s a tribute/shoutout to all the organ donors & registered donors and especially all the donor families out there who said YES to saving lives, in their own darkest moment.
I always knew donor families are amazing, but I especially realized just how amazing they are after my dad got sick. My dad won’t live long enough to get a deceased donor liver. But all those donor families out there still said YES to saving my dad and others in need like him.
Anyone can say yes or no to organ donation, but the family gets the ultimate say and are the ones who actively make the decision for the deceased donor. A significant amount of families with the opportunity to donate their family member’s organs but say no, regret it three months later. They wish they would have said yes, but were too distraught in the moment. After the initial stage of grief & shock, they realize they would have said yes. I learned this during the ambassador summit.
The most selfless thing someone can do is register as a potential organ donor. Deceased donors get absolutely nothing in return for their incredible act of love. Unlike living donors, they don’t even get to experience the joy of helping someone. People register as organ donors purely to help another human with no possibility of any benefits to themselves.
To register as a potential deceased donor, click on this link.
You can donate to an anonymous stranger here, or if you know someone in need, you can donate for them through here.
To choose your own recipient (stranger) as a living donor:
MatchingDonors.com
This is like a dating profile but to look for your perfect donor/recipient dna match. Most of them are looking for kidneys and livers, mostly kidneys.
You can make an account as a donor and browse the recipient ones, see their pictures, read their stories. If you’re moved by any of them, you can reach out and offer to be evaluated to give them your organ that they need. (Likely a kidney or portion of your liver)
I tried this many years ago, years before donating my kidney. And just couldn’t. I couldn’t choose who gets to live out of so many. They flooded my inbox like sharks on blood as soon as I opened an account. They were imploring for my kidney and sending me pictures of themselves with their kids and grandkids and telling me why it should be them who gets my kidney.
It was devastating. Some of the pictures are still burned into my memory so vividly, today. Pictures of young parents kissing their kids, pictures of old people hugging their grandkids, a picture of a young ER nurse in need of a new kidney, in her blue hospital scrubs at work, asking me to save her life so she can continue to save others, a picture of a baby in his crib with a big smile on his face, a picture of a young dad and his kids in a park with the biggest smiles…How could I possibly choose?
I wasn’t even sure I was going to choose my own recipient and was just trying it out. I had no idea potential recipients would flood my inbox, telling me how much they don’t want to die, and pleading for me to let them live.
They were all ages, infants up to 80+ years old. Most were searching for themselves, others were searching for a family member or friend in need. All of them tugged on my heartstrings, some more than others. But I couldn’t choose.
I came close to choosing one. A 50 something year old man, the dad of two adult daughters. He was too humble to request a kidney for himself, so his daughters were for him. I wrote a message that I was going to send to his daughters.
But, then, I just couldn’t choose.
That’s when I knew for sure that non-directed kidney donation was for me. It always resonated with me more, anyway. Just tossing my kidney out to whoever catches it.
I closed the account. It still haunts me today.
Years later, my kidney was given to an anonymous 50 something year old man through a non-directed donation.
Anyone interested in donating to a stranger of your choice can sign up through that link.
If you choose someone and you’re not a match, you may be able to do paired exchange or the voucher program where you donate to an anonymous stranger chosen for you, so the person of your choice gets an organ through your donation.
We’ll never have enough deceased donors because almost no one dies under the appropriate circumstances. Even if everyone in the world registered as a potential organ donor, there would be an extreme shortage of organs for those in need. More people registering would help, though. So, living donors are very much needed.
We especially need kidneys. Of the 100,000+ people waiting for a new organ, over 90,000 are waiting for a kidney.
One person can donate two organs while alive! Usually a kidney and portion of the liver. It’s extremely rare. There’s only a few hundred double living donors in the entire world. Not a few hundred a year. A few hundred EVER! Many have donated one organ to a stranger and then another organ later to another stranger. Some donated to a family member or friend and loved the experience so much, they went on to donate a different organ to a stranger.
I recommend registering as a deceased donor!! We don’t need our organs when we’re gone and have no use for them, but someone else does.
I’m an atheist, but one of my favorite quotes has always been “Don’t take your organs to Heaven, Heaven knows we need them here.”
It was a pleasant surprise. I had no idea I would be in a morgue today lol
I was trying to be discreet about taking pictures. Lol I would have taken more, but it was awkward 😆
It was cold in there.
This is one of the freezers and a gurney they lay the organ donors on.
I did not see any bodies. They were going to show us a kidney being pumped, getting ready for donation, but they send all the kidneys to Penn Hospital now.
This is a morgue only for kidney/tissue donors (just tissue now). There are a couple operating rooms in there where they remove them for donation. They also have the consent rooms where they take the families in to consent to donating their family member’s organ. It’s very sweet, whenever a family says “yes,” the staff puts a butterfly sticker up on the windows of the consent rooms, to honor the organ donor and the family’s gift of life.
I saw the elevator where the bodies are brought up. It’s a different elevator than the ones the living people use. It’s interesting because I have been around that building frequently at all different parts of the day, for many years, and have never seen a body being taken in or out. I have, very rarely, seen kidneys/tissue coming out in coolers to be taken to hospitals for transplant. But never a full body.
This morgue was specifically for kidney & tissue donors, but, now, they just do tissue.
Love it!
#organdonorssavelives 💚💙🦋
Xoxo Kim
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