Once Upon a time, there lived an awesome woman. She was smart, funny, beautiful, and charismatic. She met a man, fell in love, and married him. Together, they had a beautiful baby girl, the spitting image of her mother.

Then she got sick.

The doctors told her she had LAM disease (Lymphangioleiomyomatosis). [[link] It would continue to worsen and destroy her lung capacity and her ability to absorb oxygen from the air she breathed in. She would need a lung transplant.

And so she got sicker.

The man she'd married grew bored with this. He found another woman to make him happy again, and heartbroken the woman gathered her beautiful daughter and trekked halfway across the country, back to where she grew up. She moved into a pretty little house, not far from her mother's family, and gathered friends, family, and a few pets to help her in her time of need.

Her struggle would touch and change the lives of those people. I am one of those people.

Eventually, she made it to the top of the long transplant waiting-list. A young man of a bloodtype match had died in a car accident, and his parents had expressed their love for him by donating his organs. For this, the woman would live. She spent several months recovering in the hospital, and was sent home to the ones who loved her, one working lung healthier. She had a new friend, too -- the woman who got the boy's other lung.

But nothing lasts forever. Although she had several healthy years she could not have hoped for without the transplant, she eventually became ill again, and passed away. She died several years ago today, Valentine's Day, with a red, heart-shaped box of chocolates on the table beside her hospital bead, dreaming of "chocolate heaven" as she called it.

My aunt loved people, Mexican food (and the occasional margarita!), pets of all kinds, and life in general. Please, think of her today. Have a margarita (or beer... she liked those too) and some chocolate in her honor today...

... and sign the back of your driver license!

Don't take your organs to heaven. Heaven knows we need them here. Any time you see this bumper sticker, it means someone's loved one is alive or lived longer due to someone's generosity. Arrange with your family/next of kin to have your organs donated (even if you sign, the next of kin often must approve the donation). In the case of an accident, doctors will do all they can to save your life. In the case they can't, YOU could save someone else's.

Happy Valentines Day. Give some love, give a lung.