Khushi Vatsa, 14

School: CHIJ School (Secondary)

Topic: An email to a close friend who received a heart transplant on how to honour the deceased donor and his family.

Honouring the Hearts

Dear Mary,

How are you doing? I hope you feel much better now than when I first came to visit you in the hospital. I am writing to plan something that we can do to honour the deceased donor and his family, just as you wanted to.

I do not think you have realised, but your surgery has impacted me in many ways, and I want to tell you about it. Before the transplant, I was anxious and worried. It was as though every single thought of mine revolved around you. Watching you, out of all people, suffering made me feel like life was unfair and we never get to pick what happens to us. I had always admired how you battled through this since you were a child. After the procedure went well, I learnt that no matter how unfair life has been to you, it will eventually give you a second chance. I feel like you have taught me how to be resilient through it all and be patient, for good times are soon to come. You have taught me that although we do not get to pick what we go through, we get to pick how we go through it. I am truly grateful to have you as my close friend, and you have impacted me in ways one could only imagine.

Now, I do have a few ideas which I have pondered upon quite a lot. Firstly, I thought that we could host a “Heartbeat for hope” awareness program whereby we could help to raise awareness about heart diseases and what people can do to support people suffering with them. For example, we can raise awareness about heart failures, which cause extreme tiredness and shortness of breath. Besides being an organ donor after death, people can help and support these people by learning how to do the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). This also helps to honour the deceased donor, as his brother had arrhythmia and one of the donor’s wishes was to help his brother by making more people aware of it, as it is quite a rare disease. The donor could not donate his heart to him as their blood types were different. People can support people suffering from it by learning about its warning signs and how to do CPR.

For this, we would need a convenient location to host the program and some chairs and tables to accommodate the guests. In addition to that, I think it would be nice to have a few drinks for the guests. We would also need equipment like dummies to help demonstrate how to do CPR and make it easier for all the people to learn. I think we would also need some first aid kits so that we can show how to use them. I think people who have had personal experiences with such diseases would be motivated to join. By this, I not only mean people who have gone through it, but also the people who have or still are supporting people suffering from them. Such examples would include family members and caregivers.

I hope you do think about this idea, and if you do not like it, we can always think about something else! I am glad your transplant went smoothly, and I hope through such programs, more people will be able to find out the effects of such diseases! Hope to hear from you soon and do suggest any ideas you have!

Yours truly,
Khushi Vatsa

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2026 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 ↗ (opens in new tab)