Changing the World
By Karlsie
It didn't take long to change the world really - less than an hour when I looked at the clock. Who knew that changing the world included valet parking?
Yet that's what I discovered Monday morning after Jerry Remy asked me to give blood.
He didn't ask me personally, he asked the members of the NESN viewing audience and Red Sox Nation when he mentioned on air that he was teaming up with the good people at Mt. Auburn Hospital for a 3 day blood drive. As he discussed it on air, he went from offering a free t-shirt to "maybe I'll autograph them" to an autographed free RemDawg Nation '06 shirt.
But I didn't do it for the t-shirt. Oh sure, it's a nice perk, but I have so many t-shirts that I would have done so even if that hadn't been an incentive. I did it because I like knowing I can do something that will change the world while I motor through my rather ordinary life as a keyboard warrior. See, I've always had a fear of what would happen if someone I loved needed blood and there wasn't any. I don't know why I have that fear, but I do.
In college, I realized that fear - not for me but for a friend who's grandfather needed blood. It turned out, because the hospital was so short in supply due to a low donor turnout that summer that they were going to have to charge the family since none of them were regular donors. Granted it was for medical reasons and the staff was very sympathetic, but that's how it was. The medical necessity had already put a financial strain on the family so; I was all over it like a cheap suit.
Later that afternoon, five of my friends were lined up outside the hospital's donor center ready to roll up our sleeves for him and whoever else needed blood.
I knew my friend's mom was a single mom and her grandfather had been the man in her life to raise her. They were about as tight a family as you could get and to lose him would have been devastating. Instead, he was able to dance at her wedding and watch as his grandchildren were christened years later.
We had changed a world.
That's what giving blood is about: changing someone's world. Except in rare cases, you never know whose world that will be. Maybe it's someone like my friend's grandfather who was the primary bread winner for the family. Maybe it's a child who will one day grow up and find the cure for some devastating illness. Maybe it's the mother whom a family relies on as the gravity that keeps them all in orbit.
You just don't know - because it might even be you or someone near and dear to you.
Too many people have too many excuses. The people at Mt. Auburn were thrilled because they had 20 appointments booked where they normally had one - so they are grateful for those that signed up. But we're coming into summer where the need for blood increases and the supply decreases, so they'd love to have more.
RemDawg asked and I said, "Not a problem." Now I'm asking you: can you, will you make that call to change the world? All it takes is an hour and they give you juice and cookies when you're done. (How can you say "no" to cookies?) So do it - check the www.theremyreport.com for details or call 1-800-GIVELIFE if you can't make one of his blood drives. As they say, if you don't give blood because no one asked you, then consider yourself asked. Please, give blood.
After all, it's a nice feeling to change the world.
