huh yeah… my 17th second birthday I like to share, because it’s right and out of gratitude.
Because on July 12, 2003, it was not at all a given that I would come out of surgery alive, it was not a given that I would still be here today talking about it and saying THANK YOU.
In the movie In the Name of the Pope King when confronted with the death of a young rebel there is a line “Però mori’ a vent’anni fa incazzà…” My liver transplant donor, due to fulminant drug-induced hepatitis, was twenty years old , I do not know him nor have I ever met his family but I can imagine that seventeen years ago someone in his family, his friends felt, thought or said something similar.
During these years I always thought that I had the right and especially the duty to honor that part of him that gave me and my “second life.” And so I had to I wanted to and could combine something good….
And the gratitude is not only for the are seventeen years ago but also because this sense of having to and wanting to honor that part of him that lives in me has helped me get back up in so many moments of down, of difficulty , in which I felt a little lost. He helped me make sense of things when I felt like they didn’t. And he continues to help me.
So SUPER THANK YOU always to my donor, my children, my doctors, my family, and all the people who in some way have been part of my journey here.
Emanuela
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