Ng Wei Xun Dayan, 14

School: Yusof Ishak Secondary School

Topic: Two interviews with a donor family

Award: Fifth Place, Junior Category, 2025

A Decision That Lives On 

In the quiet hours of a hospital waiting room, a family was forced to deal with an unthinkable decision. Their twenty-two-year-old daughter, Linh, lay brain-dead from a car accident, her sunny spirit snuffed out in an instant. But in their grief, they remembered the one thing that remained unshaken in their daughter’s spirit: “If I can help someone live, let them have what they need.” 

The initial hours after Linh’s diagnosis were a haze of tears and shock. Linh’s mom, Mai, held a creased photo of Linh, shaking in her hand, as she remembered Linh registering to be an organ donor at eighteen after a friend of hers survived a bout of kidney failure. “Why waste my organs if they can help save people?” she told me in a whisper. Saying yes to give, to donate, felt, you know, like. Giving up. Like, we were giving up.” Linh’s brother, An, admitted he resisted at first. “I got really angry at the doctors,” he told me. “She’s still alive!” he yelled. Meanwhile, Mai was exclaiming how Linh would’ve hated machines keeping her body alive. 

That anger shifted when a transplant coordinator informed him that one donor had the potential to save up to eight people. “Eight people who won’t need to feel this pain,” An sobbed. “That’s what she would’ve wanted.” Despite that, they were uncertain. “What if we were rushing this decision?” Mai asked out loud. “What if she...” Her voice trailed off, the unsaid terror in the silence. Their grief was clouded by cultural taboo, and relatives disapproved of their decisions, saying that it “disrespected” Linh’s body. “They don’t know,” An said softly. “This is how we honour her.” 

Three months had passed. Time had smoothed out their pain’s rough edges, yet had not abolished it. When we met three months later, their living room had been transformed into a shrine for Linh. Her paintings hung from the walls, and the coffee table was covered in letters from the people whose lives her organs had made a difference to, and a certificate awarded to her as a “heroic donor.” Those letters, they reported, had been a source of unexpected consolation. A fourteen-year-old girl had been given Linh's heart. “She wrote, ‘I promise to take care of it… I want to be a nurse, just like you,’” recited Mai, tears in their eyes. Linh’s liver had been transplanted to a father of three, while Linh’s corneas had given sight to a grandfather. “Knowing that parts of her live on… feels strange, but it’s the only thing that makes sense,” An added. 

The contrast between the two interviews had been shocking. In the first, their voices had been coarsened by shock and doubt. Three months later, their grief had intensified, but so had their sense of mission. An, who had struggled with shame, “Were we abandoning her?”, now found comfort in the letters of the recipients. “They are, however, no substitutes,” he admitted. “But knowing that her death counted is a comforting thought.” Mai, who had been immobilised by “what-ifs,” now spoke softly with conviction. “The letters brought Linh to life for them,” she said. “As if she’s still here, making a difference.” The two admitted that the process of healing was an irregular one. “Grief is something you don’t get over,” An explained. “Some days the ‘why her?’ anger returns. But then I read the letters over and over, and… I don’t know. It helps.” 

Now, unbeknownst to the Nguyens, their decision had gone far beyond an operating theater. When local media publicised Linh’s case, the number of organ donor registrations in the area increased by forty percent. “People tell me Linh inspired them,” An said. “That’s what she leaves us, not the ones she’s helped, but the ones who are going to be helped because of her.” To those who received it, the value of “the gift” was priceless. “You gave back to me my child,” the mother of the recipient had written. “I will never forget your daughter.” 

"Don’t call us strong, this wasn’t our choice. But that decision to listen to Linh, that decision… that is a healing in itself,” As An reflected, “she taught us that death isn’t an ending. It’s a bridge.” In bridging loss and life, Linh, and the Nguyens, taught the world that in the darkest depths, the light remains.

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2025 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