Today, Wes, my friend, showed me his memory box with things inside of it. He had it when he was very young… 14 or 15 years old.
In the box, there was a picture of him riding a dirt bike with a cap on… No helmet, no gloves. He was probably around 17 or 18 years old.
There were several rolls of pennies and a one dollar bill that he got from selling newspapers when he was young.
There was a piece of paper that he wrote a poem on.
There was his very first driving license.
And there was this piece of a newspaper article that he cut and kept it in this box when he was 14 years old.
The article wrote…
To Remember Me…
The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.
When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don’t call this my deathbed. Let it be called the Bed of Life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby’s face or love in the eye of a woman. Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain. Give my blood to the teen-ager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way too make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday, a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window.
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weakness and all prejudice against my fellow man.
Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God.
If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.
Robert N. Test (1926-1994) in Cincinnati Post
I’m so thankful for this experience…
Beyond grateful…
