Hope and grief are two opposite but necessary parts of the life. One cannot appreciate the importance of the one without facing or living the other. Eye donation is related with the two.
The Grief:
Thinking that your eyes will be plucked is in itself an unnerving feeling. To think that you are mourning sudden death of your friend and a few strangers come to take away eyes of your beloved one is still more tragic. These feelings let us shrug off the discussions and the promotions that advocate eye donation.
The cheering moments:
Your friend made a SMSto you that he is at hospital with his wife admitted. You already know that they are expecting a child soon. You rush to join the happy moments and hurriedly buy some nice gifts, arrange a leave from office and rush to the place. You are there and there are many more friends. You discuss about the health of the mother and the child and all is fine. But….
But suddenly the atmosphere gets reversed with observation by one lady there that the child seems not to respond to any changes before his eyes. The doctor is called and he asks for a little time. The child is taken to a separate chamber by nurse and a few minutes later doctor turns up with no smile on his face. The young doctor manages to inform you that the child can see the world but there is still some problem. A few more tests are required to tell how weak his eye sight is.
The Grief again:
The above developments change the cheering atmosphere. The ladies who were leaders of the cheer are leading the grief now with sobbing of the mother being the loudest. You feel helpless and share the grief with your friend. You console him and suggest it’s good that the problem is detected early. You say you would discuss the case after finding best of the ophthalmologists. But you are unable to deal with the sorry state much.
After visiting to a few ophthalmologists you are clear on the issue that had the rate of eye donations been higher, there would have been no problem at all. You come to know that millions the world over suffer from blindness and other eye problems only because people don’t resolve to donate their eyes.
If the society were in times of a few century back, it would have been easier for authorities of those societies, ‘religiously’ governed by religion. They would have made eye donation a part of rituals to be followed after death of anybody and then it would have been obligatory for anyone to observe this ritual with his or her near one’s death.
But now we are educated, free and sensitive. The irony is that our knowledge, sensibility and conscience are all shallow.
Hope amidst the grief:
It lies only in our firm determination. We need to be harsh to support the eye donation procedure. Hope lies only in this harshness if you dare to show this bravery. Once it becomes part of culture, it would really be the truest conscience at work in our modern society.
