Hello, awesome readers!
If you were around to notice this recent post, or this one, or this one, you may be aware that I moved this summer. No big deal. People move all the time. If you’re anything like me, walking around with an over-stuffed sack from trick or treating all night (only full of thoughts instead of candy), you know what it’s like to move even when we’re not moving. Some people call it a restless mind. I call it LEAVE ME ALONE, HAMSTER.
What’s different about THIS move though is that I’ve changed provinces. In case you’ve never taken the plunge, let me be the first to tell you: moving from one part of a country to another comes with a slew of shit to do. Change your address … Change your driver’s license … Change the plates on your car … Change your medical privileges … Oh and the most recent first world problem: change your email address.
If you think I’m exaggerating, just try it. Move to another province or state and I PROMISE that you’ll be sending me an email to apologize for judging me. That is, if I’ve remembered to send you my new email address.
Yesterday, while I was applying for my new medical privileges (for lack of a better term), the government attendant that was helping me asked me something that I’ve never considered before:
“Do you give your consent to become an organ and tissue donor?”
My first reaction was no reaction at all. I just stared at her.
“No pressure,” she said. “You can think about it.”
What she failed to realize was that I WAS thinking about it.
Suddenly, my demise became a reality.
I was imagining my kids burying me without eyes.
I was imagining my body on a giant ice cube tray, waiting for the right liver recipient.
I was imagining how maybe I’d have to be cremated after all, once they were finished raiding my body for parts.
“Yes,” I said. “I give my consent. Although speaking from personal experience, I recommend NOT donating my brain. That piece of work has been a disappointment even as a first time user.”
The government attendant looked at me, blinked, and then asked, “for research as well?”
Well that just brought on a whole new slew of thoughts.
I imagined being the first body to help discover penicillin. And then I remembered that penicillin has already been discovered – thanks to HORSES not humans.
I imagined being the first zombie to come back to life, thanks to a concoction of said penicillin.
I imagined being part of the cure to whatever disease ends up killing me and having to ask my kids for their inheritance back.
Then I remembered that I’ve never stepped foot in a lab (except for that time in grade 10 science class when I refused to dissect a frog because EWWW) and realized that I’m not even qualified to imagine what would happen to my body in research.
“Yes,” I said. “I give my consent.”
My reasoning: what the hell am I going to do with a dead body anyway?
She looked pleased. And me, being the kind of person that I am, was pleased to have pleased her. (That may have come out wrong.)
“Congratulations,” she said. “You’re officially an Ontarian.”
PS. If you’re as analytical as I am, you may have noticed that “Ontarian” sounds a little like “ovarian”. I’m taking it upon myself to tell you that these two words have nothing in common. Unless if you’re a poet.
All that to tell you that I am now an official resident of Ontario – both as a living person and a dead one. Apparently.
Gmail
Ha! NOW you tell me 🙂
It’s funny what runs through our heads in a split second – I have pictures in my head of myself in heaven missing bit and pieces I’ve donated along the way……
Leanne, it’s both funny and scary what we can imagine or how we imagine 🙂
I moved a few years ago to a different state and it is such a cluster f*#k! It took me forever to find all of the appropriate offices and forms. Oh my the forms you have to fill out!
Rena, almost makes you never want to move again!
IT does sound like Ovarian. Congrats!!!
Thanks, Kyla 🙂
The older I get the more often I think about what will happen after I’m gone. I want to donate my body to science because with all my physical problems, I think it holds a goldmine of information that researchers would love to explore..
“Goldmine for science”. I love the concept, Theresa 🙂
For me the whole point of either Yahoo or Gmail is having one free “address” that remains the same if my physical address changes. A relative set up his Yahoo account in Spain; most of his e-mail is in English while his Yahoo buttons are in Spanish (even when he checks e-mail in the U.S.), but he seems to get e-mail reliably in any country.
Priscilla, you’re so right about the point of using Yahoo and Gmail. My previous email account was with a company that only serves one province. I was with them for YEARS. And possibly when I first signed on I had no idea that I would be changing provinces “one day”. Live and learn 🙂
I worry that none of my body parts will be worth donating. Like maybe I should improve my health just so my lungs will be worth something to someone someday. Clearly I’m not using them to their fullest capacity. Maybe someone should?
So very profound. Possibly, you have no idea how profound.