My primary motivation is the same as my dad’s: Lucas’s health, but I am struck by other questions: wouldn’t I give especially for myself? Wouldn’t it be a somewhat self-serving gift that comes to mend a difficult pregnancy since Lucas was born premature? I would need to discuss this inner journey with my future ex-husband. Finally, we have a discussion and I am disappointed and hurt by what comes out. For him, whether he is a donor or whether it is me, it is “the same”. He brings up the matter exclusively from the point of view of our son’s health. Fortunately, I have friends with whom I can discuss spiritual matters. With them, I evoke the masculinity of an organ like the kidney and I end up deducing that it would be better if the donation given to Lucas, who needs to cut the cord with his mother, came from his father. But when I explain it to my ex, it ticks. He saw me motivated, and suddenly I show him that he will be a more suitable donor than me. The kidneys represent our roots, our heritage. In Chinese medicine, the energy of the kidneys is the sexual energy. In Chinese philosophy, the kidney stores the essence of being… So I’m sure, him or me, it’s not the same. Because in this gift, each one commits a different gesture, charged with its own symbolism. We must see beyond the physical organ which is “the same”. I try again to explain my reasons to him, but I feel him angry. He probably doesn’t want to make this donation anymore, but he decides he will. But ultimately, the medical exams are more favorable to a donation from me. So I will be the donor.
I see this organ donation experience as an initiatory journey and it is time to announce to my son that I will be a donor. He asks me why me rather than his father: I explain that at the beginning, my emotions took up too much space and I develop my masculine-feminine story that he listens with distracted ear: it’s not his thing. these interpretations! To be honest, I thought it was fair that her father had the opportunity to “give birth” since I was the one who had this chance the first time. Other questions arise when you donate a kidney. I give, okay, but then it’s up to my son to follow his treatments to avoid rejection. And I recognize that sometimes I feel anger when I feel him immature. I need him to measure the scope of this act, to be ready to receive it, that is to say, to show himself mature and responsible for his health. As the transplant approaches, I feel more anxious.
It is an intense day of emotion. The operation should last three hours, and we go down to the OR at the same time. When I open my eyes in the recovery room and meet her magnificent blue eyes, I bathe in well-being. Then we share the ugly salt-free ICU meal trays, and my son calls me his “nightmother” when I manage to get up and give him a hug. We put up with the ugly anticoagulant injection together, we laugh, we shoot each other, we live next to each other and it’s beautiful. Then it is the return home which requires some bereavement. Time out after the battle. What am I going to do now that it’s done? Then comes the “kidney-blues”: I had been warned… It looks like post-childbirth depression. And it’s all my life that goes back before my eyes: a marriage started on bad foundations, dissatisfied, too much emotional dependence, a deep wound at the premature birth of my child. I feel the overlap of his inner bruises and I meditate for a long time. It takes me a while to tell myself that I am a mother, really, that the light envelops me and protects me, that I am right, that I have done well.
My scar on my navel is beautiful, what it represents is magnificent. For me, she is a memory. A magical trace that allowed me to activate self-love. Of course, I gave my son a gift, to allow him to become a man, but above all a gift to myself because this journey is an interior journey and a meeting towards oneself. Thanks to this gift, I have become more authentic, and I am more and more in agreement with myself. I am discovering that deep within me, my heart radiates love. And I want to say: thank you, Life!