Sevilleja Gabrielle Lexia Dumaraos, 14

School: Ngee Ann Secondary School

Topic: Describe how you feel hearing someone close, receiving a heart transplant

Award: High Distinction, Junior Category, 2023

Silent heroes

Organ donation.

Every single day, lives are saved because of the generous and brave organ donors who were willing to give everything they had, even from beyond the grave. But what does this mean for the organ donors? Or the organ donor’s families? Is it worth having to live cautiously for the rest of your life just to save another? Not being able to bury your family member properly because their organs have been harvested and given to people you do not even know. And what did I, a family member of someone who received a heart transplant, feel as I watched the organ donor’s family suffer at the loss of their beloved son, just so my mother could survive?

March 10th, 2023. By then my mother had been diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy, a condition where the walls of the heart become stretched, not allowing blood to pump through efficiently. She was on the organ donation waiting list for a year now, but there was still no news. Suddenly, my phone lit up.

“Is this Alan Tan? It’s the Sengkang Hospital, your mother’s heart is failing, she needs emergency surgery”, the nurse on the other side of the phone stated. Those words cut through me like a knife. This was it, I thought, I was going to lose the most important person in my life. Forever. “Hello, sir? Are you still there? We’ve found an organ donor for your mother. We just need you to consent to the surgery.” Life re-entered my face, stunned and on the brink of tears as I agreed without hesitation to the surgery. For once in the grueling past year, I could see it. There was indeed light at the end of the tunnel. As I booked my flight home and made my way to the hospital, hope filled me as I prayed for a successful surgery.

I arrived 6 hours after her surgery ended, only to be directed to the waiting room. As I reluctantly walked away from the Intensive Care Unit doors, I caught a glimpse of my mother. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. A plastic tube in her throat, helping her breathe, wires attached to every part of her pale, still body with only machines keeping her alive until she could recover. A million thoughts raced through my mind as I grappled with the fact that she might still reject the heart even after going through so much. How I wished I could do something, anything to ease the pain she was going through. I was but an outsider peeking in. I was helpless. And what if she does survive? She will look and sound like the same person, but will there be further complications? Will she heal well?

I stepped into the waiting room, greeted by an old couple. I quietly sat down, noticing their eyes following me around the room. They looked at me expectantly. Then it hit me. Myrtle and Craig Goh, the parents of Amy Goh, the kind young woman whose heart had saved my mother. I smiled weakly, and waved at them, unsure what to say. After a few minutes of awkward silence, I finally spoke, “Thank you so much. You don’t know how much donating your daughter’s heart means to me. How can I repay you?”

“Nonsense! You don’t have to repay us. Our daughter brought as much joy as she could into our lives, she was such a wonderful child. Her smile could light up a room.” they said, tears quickly forming in their eyes, “It’s so sad to see her go.”

It was hard to imagine. The heart of my mother belonged to someone else. Someone with their own life before all this, never to see the sun rise again or give her parents one last hug.

She was gone.

Forever.

I listened to stories of what a wonderful person Amy was and how she loved being outside. Then I got the news, no complications with my mother’s surgery! Before I left, Amy’s parents said something that has stuck with me from that day onwards. “Congrats, we’re so happy for you! Good luck with everything. Please take good care of your mother, our daughter’s memory lives through her. And so long as she’s here, our daughter will never truly be gone.” they said. And for a moment, even just the shortest moment those words brought hope to my life, maybe even theirs.

Everything was going to be alright.

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2023 are those of the participants and are not endorsed by the National Organ Transplant Unit (Ministry of Health). To learn more about organ donation and organ transplantation in Singapore, please visit www.liveon.gov.sg