Seconds after I declared their beautiful baby dead and his mother nodded gently, his father placed him in my arms to bring him to the waiting transplant surgeon. They were sobbing, broken, but courageously and freely giving unmeasurable gifts to others whose own bodies were no longer able to support them. The baby boy’s body still warm and soft, small and light in my scrubbed arms, pressed against my heavy heart, aching for him, his family, for what he could never become. My steps hurried, every second counting for these precious organs, for so many lives just made possible again.
Steffi Gauguet, a pediatric intensivist, mom, and writer from Germany, lives in central Massachusetts, where she skis with her husband and their much faster kids.