“Once upon a time, there was a girl who really loved to swim. The end.”
So said a lovely card we received a few days ago on the fourth anniversary of Lucia’s death, 24th May.
A picture of a girl gracefully diving into high sea waves. A message of great kindness within.
True. Lucia loved swimming. The water gave her a place to feel free from daily struggles. A place to focus. To feel fit.
Another place to be grateful to her donors. When it led to the podium there was always a beaming smile as she stood proudly with others and collected her medal.
But it’s not the whole truth. There is, of course, so much more to her life than swimming.
In February 2019 Lucia wrote a blog for her good friend, Lucy. It helped launch the first campaign for Renegades Foundation, an online platform for some powerful young voices “making noise about silent stigmas”.
“My medical history does not define me”, Lucia wrote.
“The girl with the liver transplants. Anorexia. Anxiety. Diabetes. Auto-Immune Hepatitis. It would be fair to say that a good proportion of what makes me me – are medical conditions.
But that’s all it is. A proportion. It is not the whole of me. These words do not tell you WHO Lucia Mee is.
So, I will.”
And she did, in her own unique style. You can read that blog here.
The twist/gift is that although her medical conditions didn’t define her, those conditions, and the medical responses to them, helped shape her life.
“I would say organ donation, my donor families, my donors, didn’t just save my life, they shaped my life because I now do all of these things that I would never have had a chance to do had I not been a transplant recipient. In that sense, in so many ways, I would never, ever change what’s happened to me because, partly it’s the way I’ve grown up, but it’s given me such a unique and special life that, why would I want anything different, you know? I go to the Transplant Games. Transplant Games is the highlight of my year…I love it…and it’s given me all the passions that surround the Transplant Games, like my swimming…having interests, passions in life, and just…life in itself, to give you appreciation for the little things… (Lucia, The Listening Project, British Library Archives.)
That’s the power of a transplant, the power that lies in those conversations, in consent for organ donation. An opportunity not just to get back into life but to see it with new perspectives. Deeper awareness that life is not to be taken for granted. It is a gift. Welcomed, appreciated and lived to the corners.
Lucia took her story and made it a resource to make a difference for others. In speaking of organ donation and its power to save and transform, she found the gentle power of a grateful voice, the flower that cracks through concrete, the word that can break a heart open. And there were listeners…
But there was so much more.
“There is so much more to me, and to everyone. Your story is never just about one thing. So many things go into making us humans who we are.
I am hard working. I am resilient. I am sarcastic. I am a writer, a swimmer, a reader, campaigner, feminist. I am a small-town Irish girl who wants to travel the world. I am still learning who I am, how to be independent whilst living with multiple medical conditions. I’m figuring out what my future might hold. I’m a sister, a daughter, cousin, best friend and ‘the single friend’. I’m stupid and crazy and a tiny bit reckless. I can take care of myself but probably no one else. I am not a cook. I am not the tidiest of girls. I’m creative and organised in a unique kind of way.
I am a young woman who is figuring out what life looks like, and one part of that life happens to be my medical conditions. It contributes to my story in a big way, but it is not the whole book.
I am so much more than my medical notes.”
Powered by the gift of strangers. The consent of organ donors and their families. It doesn’t just save lives, it transforms them. A life that can become so much more, and so much more in the lives of others.
Four years on, we know our relationship with Lucia cannot be defined only by her death. It is more. We are more because of Lucia. And twelve and a half years extra with her because of her donors.
Like Lucia, we may not be defined by her medical records, or even by her absence.
Her donors transformed our lives, too. And Lucia’s commitment to making things better for others, is contagious.
Today, on her 25th birthday, we are with Lucia in reaffirming her commitment to Live Loudly, Donate Proudly…
