| A
bond of love made through blood |
 |
By Susannah Lin
October 6, 2002
Chinese Version
PAN CHIAO, Taiwan
I now dedicate my life to someone I don't
even know from the simple act of drawing a few ounces of my
blood. I have heard of the power that blood holds. It ties you
to the land, people and promises. Bonds made through blood have
the ability to transcend time and the impermanence of fate.
A bond to the land
I'm riding home with a different feeling.
I don't want to run away anymore. I've had persistent dreams
of disappearing in Tibet, fighting for the fire beneath the
land of snows that still burns for its freedom. I've had similar
longing to vanish into India to find the loving integrity that
Mother Teresa so dearly demonstrated. And Morocco, I have dreamed
of going there to learn French and Arabic. But now, something
beautiful awaits me in Taiwan: the chance to save a life.
I now carry card number 242503, to be kept
with me at all times until I am age 55, from the Tzu Chi Marrow
Donor Registry. This means that I am now entered in their database
of potential bone marrow donors, the third largest registry
in the world and the largest registry in the Asian world. This
means that I've now joined nearly 250,000 people to increase
the chance of someone finding that one person in more than 10,000
with matching bone marrow. And this means that this someone,
who grows weaker by the day from his blood disease, will now
have one more person to look to for one last chance at life.
How could I deny anyone from this?
A bond with a person
"We are all fish in a tank with
holes; time is the water that keeps seeping out, and once it is
gone all our physical forms must die."
-Master Cheng Yen
Patients dying from blood diseases such as
leukemia are in desperate need of a way to fight for their lives.
The holes in their tanks are made larger by their disease and
the water rushes out, never slowing with each passing second.
Bone marrow donation from a compatible donor is literally their
last hope for plugging those holes in their tank. Even then,
there is still the chance that it will not take.
The Master says we have only the right to
use our bodies. We do not own our bodies, for it too will one
day perish, as all things on earth are destined to end. In our
lives, to give from the ability of our health what others so
desperately seek and need is indeed one of the finest ways to
honor our lives.
"Life is a journey; we board an express
train at birth and head for the unavoidable destination of death.
The scenery drifts by, and the only meaningful thing we can do
is to be good and kind to our fellow passengers."
-Master Cheng Yen
The magnitude and the simplicity of this purpose
astound me.
Barely living in the end of their days, these
patients and their family fight for hope - that someone out
there, the one and only, will come along, register and be willing
to donate that power of healing from their body before it's
too late. It is a race against time. The cliché "it's
never too late to help someone" does not hold true when
you realize you must act but hesitate. We must be fearless in
our compassion!
The bond of a promise
"When a promise is made to your
heart, sooner or later your heart will remind you to carry out
that promise."
-Master Cheng Yen
I gave my blood to Tzu Chi. I cannot just
run away and disappear now. In this way, I am now tied to Taiwan,
Tzu Chi and this individual who seeks another chance at life.
Wherever I go, I must either always stay close to or within
close contact with Tzu Chi, for this individual could be depending
on me to go back in a moment's notice. Tzu Chi feels like home
to me, for it is where my heart belongs and where my purpose
in life will be fulfilled. Thus, I know I will never wander
far and never wander from its mission.
Who knows, perhaps my marrow will someday
match someone who is from Tibet, India or even Morocco.
Susannah Lin, a Tzu Chi volunteer,
joins the Tzu Chi Bone Marrow Registry by having her blood
drawn.On the left is volunteer Li-ching Chen.
