They didn’t require a lengthy explanation from the organ-donor coordinator. After tests demonstrated that their little girl was brain-dead, they asked what the procedure was to make her an organ donor, because it was what she would have wanted. She had played in the school band, fed families at a homeless shelter during Christmas, and wanted to save every stray pet that crossed her path. I stayed overnight after her parents had kissed her good-bye and helped the organ-donation team coordinate the surgery, stopping occasionally to touch her arm and thank her.
 
She was from a small town in the Ozarks where community is family. On the day of her funeral, the high school was closed and virtually every student attended her service. Her friends and fellow members of the marching band played a song as all the other people present held hands. Then the service ended, and everyone went home.
 
A little more than a year later, I wandered into the break room to pour myself a cup of cheap, wretched coffee, the kind only hospitals dare serve, and looked to see what new, absurd jokes were on the bulletin board. (My all-time favorite: If assholes could fly, this place would be an airport.) Next to memos and a recipe for monster cookies contributed by a happy wife whose husband had survived a stroke was a handwritten note that read, “Thank you for all you did.” Tacked inside it was a softly crumpled newspaper clipping containing a poem that opened with a message from her parents: “We miss you so much. Our hearts ache for you every single day.” They had placed a tribute to her in their local paper and sent a copy of it to us.
 
I don’t remember much about the poem or the message it tried to convey. What I remember was the date on the newspaper clipping. Instead of honoring her on the day of her birth or death, they chose to remember her on the day her organs were transplanted. They chose to honor the day she gave others life. Four people received life-saving organs from that 15-year-old girl. Two others received essential tissues. In all, six people were transformed because those devastated parents decided to honor the giving spirit of their precious child. I do not know if I could have such courage in the face of such unimaginable pain. I could not fathom how they maintained the ability to breathe. To walk. To get out of bed. And then I remembered my grandmother, who had borne her two sons one year apart and buried them some 20 years later, one year apart. How did she endure it not once but twice?
 
Working in that intensive care unit gave me countless sad tales, and some unfortunate memories are burned into my brain. But it wasn’t some catastrophic moment that taught me one of the most powerful lessons of my life. I learned that unbelievably awful things can and do happen. In truth, they are not such rare, isolated events. Each of us has a story that would break someone’s heart. Despite the grief and the unfairness of it all, we keep going. There are chores to be done. There are people who still need our care. There is a life to be led.
 
The real lesson was found in the date on that small newspaper clipping. I realized that, regardless of the heartache, we may choose the moments in which we live.
 
On that day, I learned that love creates a tremendous capacity for grace. And perhaps it is that grace that keeps us moving forward.
 
Click here to read Parenting a Child With a Disability, the powerful runner-up in the first Life Lessons essay contest.