New Life in Spring!

Spring is upon us once again, somewhat early this year. It is a joy to see the flowers unfolding, birds singing, and the Grey surroundings of the winter months turning into a voluptuous Green! I have seen lambs, ducklings, goslings, and as ever I am amazed every year at this sight of birth and renewal of life.

While searching the internet I accidently came upon the Donor Registry for The Netherlands, www.donnorregistratie.nl. Somehow to me this correlates with spring, I have given organ donation a fleeting thought over the years, I have even thought that perhaps I could donate my body to medical science. If my death happens while I am living here, I have visions of my husband taking me on a Easy Jet flight to Scotland wearing a flowery hat of course, and depositing me at the nearest medical research university!

I have now found out that as an expat I can donate my organs in The Netherlands. There has been a campaign recently by the ministry with regard to donor registry; all young people born in 1992 have been sent an information pack, this is certainly an improvement on what was proposed a few years ago whereby everyone was going to be registered whether they wanted to or not! I think the important part of the donor register is that I can say yes or no. I believe that this can alleviate some of the difficulties when one of our loved ones dies, and doctors have the task of asking if the family would consent or not to organ donation.

The topic of new life is always easy, but death is not so easy. Death however is for the living, just like winter is a closure of the seasons, and then along comes spring in all its glory.

Hazel R. van der Heijden