Relics of Some Lifetime

My grandmother was a journal-keeper right up until her recent death at 95. I recently came into possession of one of her journals and had the chance today to look through it. In this particular notebook, she'd handwritten verses and quotes that caught her attention, and there were a few clippings, a typed poem, and some photos tucked inside the front cover. On one newspaper clipping, "To Remember Me" by Robert Test, she'd written "I love this." I do, too:

To Remember Me

The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment, a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.

When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my deathbed. Let it be called the Bed of Life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to the man who as never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman. Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.

Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.

Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that someday, a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window.

Burn what is left of me, and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses, and all prejudice against my fellow man.

If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.




Note: Title, "Relics of Some Lifetime," is from a caption to an illustration in a book of my daughter's. She always asks what "relics of some lifetime" means when we read that book. I'll have to remember to show her the journal next time she asks.