Would You Donate Your Organs When You Are No Longer Here?
(ENGLISH VERSION)
Javier Alejandro Romero Castillo
Apr 8, 2026
In 2021, I received a kidney transplant from a deceased donor.
Someone died… and I am still alive.
For more than two years, I depended on a machine to stay alive. Hemodialysis is not life; it is a pause. Everything becomes fragile. Everything depends on something you do not control.
And then something happens that should not depend on luck: a donor appears.
Not someone you know.
Not someone who chose you.
Someone who made a decision before… or whose family made it in the worst moment of their life.
That decision was made while someone else was dying.
And it is the reason I am still here.
Now the question is not comfortable, but it is necessary:
Have you already decided what will happen to your organs when you die?
It is not an idea.
It is not an opinion.
It is a pending decision.
Because when the moment comes, there is no time to reflect.
Your family decides… or does not decide.
And many times they say no… because you never talked about it.
That silence also decides.
Donating organs is not a symbolic gesture. It is something concrete: someone lives because another person — or their family — said yes.
Without recognition.
Without reward.
Without knowing to whom.
I am proof of that.
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While one family was saying goodbye to someone, another was receiving a second chance.
I was on that second side.
My life today exists because of a decision made in the worst moment for someone else.
And that changes everything.
That is why donation is not just generosity. It is responsibility.
Responsibility toward something that, in the end, you will no longer need… but that can mean everything to someone else.
Not all of us need an organ.
But all of us can become donors.
Most people do not. Not out of bad intention, but because they never decide.
And not deciding… is also deciding.
If you died today, what would happen to your organs?
Would they save lives… or would they be lost?
Today you can still decide it.
And more importantly: you can tell your family.
It is not an easy decision.
But it is a decision that someone will have to make for you.
Someone made that decision for me.
Today I am alive because of that.
The question is not whether you agree.
It is whether you have already decided.
Registering as a donor is not filling out a form. It is telling someone you will never meet: “Your life matters more than my silence.”
Do it now. Not for me. For the one who doesn’t yet know they need you.
➡️ Cenatra: http://www.cenatra.gob.mx/dv/index.php
Thank you for reading this essay. If you are interested in diving deeper into the methodology behind this research, you can explore my practical exercises and exclusive essays here: https://ko-fi.com/javieralerom
