February Newsletter

About 10 years ago, I was completing one of those forms where you are asked if you want to be on the organ donor register. As I had always done with these forms, I left the box unchecked. My wife asked why I did not want to be on the register. I thought hard about her question, and I said, “I don’t know”. Maybe I was a bit unsure, perhaps even a bit scared, of returning incomplete to Mother Earth when I die. What if the Resurrection or Reincarnation were to happen, might being incomplete hamper my chances? Naturally such reflections led to questions I had never contemplated. My wife wanted to know – did I want to be buried or cremated (and would I want some of my ashes to be kept here in England and the rest to be sent back home to Nigeria?). “Hold on”, I said to her. “How would someone whose body has been cremated to ashes resurrect?” If I chose to be buried, how would my parents and siblings feel when they see my body and learn that the surgical wound in my tummy is where my organs have been harvested from.