Walking Her Path: A Donate Life Month Reflection

There are certain dates that live in the body long after the calendar moves on. April 14th is one of mine. It’s the day my mother died in 2022 – two years after receiving a liver transplant that gave her more time, more memories, more laughter, and more love than her doctors ever expected.

And this year, April carries another layer: I now find myself walking the same path she walked, step for step, diagnosis for diagnosis, hope for hope.

It’s a strange thing, living inside a month dedicated to organ donation while also living inside a body that needs one. Stranger still to be doing it with the memory of my mother – her courage, her humor, her stubbornness, her fight – echoing through every appointment, every scan, every moment of waiting.

Some days it feels like I’m following her footprints in the snow. Some days it feels like I’m rewriting the story she didn’t get to finish. And some days, it feels like she’s walking beside me, humming along to whatever music I’ve got playing, nudging me forward when the fatigue gets too heavy.

My Mother’s Story: A Legacy of Strength

My mother had MASH – metabolic dysfunction–associated steatohepatitis – long before most people had ever heard the acronym. She also had liver cancer. She had the kind of medical chart that makes doctors whistle softly and say things like, “Well, you’re a fighter.”

And she was.

She received her liver transplant in December of 2019, right in the beginning of a global pandemic, when hospitals were stretched thin and hope felt like a rationed commodity. But she got her miracle. She got her second chance. She got more time – precious, irreplaceable time – because someone, somewhere, said yes.

That yes mattered. It mattered to her. It mattered to us. It still matters now.

Her donor didn’t just save her life; they expanded it. They gave her more holidays, more conversations, more sunrises, more chances to say “I love you.”

But cancer is a relentless thing. It had already spread too far, too quietly, too quickly. And on April 14, 2022, she slipped away.

Her transplant didn’t cure her. But it gave her time. And time is its own kind of miracle.

Now I Walk the Same Path

I never expected to follow her so closely. I never expected to know the vocabulary of liver disease as intimately as I do now. I never expected to be the one waiting for a donor, hoping for a match, navigating the same maze of fatigue, scans, medications, and uncertainty.

And yet – here I am.

I have MASH. I have portal hypertension. I have esophageal varices that like to cosplay as bubble wrap. I have a lesion on my liver that, thankfully, is still behaving itself. I have exhaustion that feels baked into my bones. I have days where gravity feels personal.

And I have hope – the same hope my mother carried – that someone out there might be willing to say yes.

It’s surreal, walking the same road she walked. Sometimes it feels like a cruel coincidence. Sometimes it feels like a cosmic joke. But more often, it feels like a continuation – like I’m carrying her story forward, not as a burden, but as a thread.

She didn’t get the ending she deserved. But maybe I can write a different one.

The Theatricality of Waiting

If my mother’s journey was a drama, mine sometimes feels like a dark comedy with musical interludes. The waiting room becomes a stage set. The nurses are stage managers. The doctors are directors with very specific notes. The scans are dress rehearsals. And I’m the actor who keeps showing up, even when the script changes without warning.

My mother understood this theatre. She lived it. with help from my sister, she performed it with grace and grit. And now I find myself stepping into the same role, trying to remember my lines, trying to keep the humor alive, trying not to trip over the scenery.

There are moments when I swear I can hear her voice in the wings, whispering, “Project more. And don’t let them dim your spotlight.”

Music as the Bridge Between Us

Music was one of the ways my mother and I stayed connected, even when her body was failing. She didn’t always understand my love of jam bands, but she understood the feeling – that sense of being lifted, carried, held by something bigger than yourself.

Now, when the fatigue hits hard, music steps in like the one cast member who actually knows their lines. A song will come on, and suddenly I’m not just tired – I’m tethered. I’m reminded that I’m still here. I’m reminded that my story is still unfolding.

Sometimes I imagine my mother listening along with me. Sometimes I imagine her dancing in whatever afterlife she believed in. Sometimes I imagine her nudging the universe, saying, “Help my kid out, okay?”

Music becomes the bridge between her journey and mine – a reminder that even when the body falters, the spirit improvises.

Donate Life Month: A Legacy That Lives On

April is it’s National Donate Life Month.

National Donate Life Month is about honoring donors, celebrating second chances, and recognizing the profound impact of saying yes. It’s about the people who choose to leave a legacy not in monuments or achievements, but in lives saved and lives extended.

My mother’s donor left a legacy. A legacy that gave her time. A legacy that gave us memories. A legacy that still echoes in me.

And now, I’m searching for my own angel – someone whose generosity could give me the chance to keep writing my story, to keep showing up for the people I love, to keep living the life I’m fighting so hard to hold onto.

It’s humbling to ask. It’s vulnerable to need. But Donate Life Month reminds me that asking is part of the story. And needing is not a failure – it’s an invitation.

A Gentle Invitation

If you’re reading this, thank you. Thank you for being part of my forest. Thank you for holding space for my mother’s story and mine. Thank you for caring enough to make it to the end of this chapter.

And if you feel moved – even a little – to learn more about living donation, I invite you to explore, read, ask questions, and follow your curiosity. You don’t have to make a decision. You don’t have to commit to anything. Just learning is enough.

Because awareness is part of the forest too. And every forest begins with someone planting a seed.

My mother’s life was extended because someone said yes. My life could be saved because someone else might. That’s the legacy of Donate Life Month. That’s the legacy of generosity. That’s the legacy of hope.

And as I walk this path she walked before me, I carry her story with me – not as a shadow, but as a lantern.

Lighting the way. One step at a time.