It is finally April.. Let me repeat that, it is finaallllllllly April! I think to say that us in the North East are excited about that, would be the understatement of the year. Even if it isn't the warmest of weather, it is currently around 50 degrees, anything is better than the tundra like temperatures we are coming from- I think this was probably one of the worst winters I can think of, how wonderful it was my first winter back from Auburn. I did have Auburns weather still saved on my iPhones weather app, and let me tell you how many let downs I experienced when opening the app to see 65 degrees... Only to realize I hadn't swiped over to Boston's weather. Anywho, it's now Spring! I can hear the birds, I can see the pavement... may not be exciting for some of you, but for us New Englanders, we are sick of seeing white stuff we have grown to hate so much. Ahhh, just feel spring in the air. But this month doesn't just bring the joy of knowing winter has come to an end...no, it brings another, more emotional, feeling for me. April is Donate Life month. I've seen my mother,father, three of my aunts (one donating twice) and myself, all donate an organ to save a life. It is the greatest gift a person can give to another. But what happens when they can't do a living related transplant (like the ones my family had done before) well, you must wait for a cadaveric transplant (from the deceased) and this is where the importance of other people checking yes on their license, comes in. I watched my sister die while waiting for a second set of new lungs, she was number one on the list, but died all because those lungs never came. But people were continuing to die everyday...How could this be that for six months lungs never came? That question began to haunt me. The anger I felt after realizing the answer, the lack of organ donors in our world, motivated me to push the importance or organ donation and how crucial it is for people to become one. If you haven't seen the need first hand, that doesn't make the need any less real- just look at my families story. So check yes to being an organ donor... You could save a life. If there were more organ donors out there... I would still have the person I had planned, for as long back as I can remember, as the maid of honor in my future wedding. I would still have that person whose future children would have play dates with my own, while the two of us sipped on a glass of wine, chatting and bickering like sisters do. Instead, I have to find a way to incorporate her memory in my wedding, I'll have to show my children pictures of someone they will never meet, and I will sip on a glass of wine myself as I look through a photo album of her pictures. You can check out the guest blog I did all about organ donation, here Here are some scary facts from organdonor.gov During your visit to organdonor.gov, someone may have been added to the waiting list. It happens every 10 minutes. Each day, an average of 79 people receive organ transplants. However, an average of 18 people die each day waiting for transplants that can’t take place because of the shortage of donated organs. People of every age give and receive organ donations. In 2012, 28,051 people received organ transplants. Here’s the number of recipients by age group: 1 Year Old: 277 (252 deceased, 25 living donors) 1 – 5 Years: 520 (422 deceased, 98 living donors) 6 – 10 Years: 280 (220 deceased, 60 living donors) 11 – 17 Years: 695 (539 deceased, 156 living donors) 18 – 34 Years: 3,105 (2,010 deceased, 1,095 living donors) 35 – 49 Years: 6,386 (4,809 deceased, 1.577 living donors) 50 – 64 Years: 12,155 (10,096 deceased, 2,059 living donors) 65+ Years: 4,633 (3,839 deceased, 794 living donors) Someday you may not need your organ, so give it someone who does. Prevent someone else from watching their loved one lose a battle they could have won. Become an organ donor by just checking yes. If more people did, my older sister could have been sitting next to me right now.