Cancer Journal #49 August 26

My mother deeded her body to the University of Iowa Medical School to be used as a cadaver for medical students.   There was a memorial service in Iowa City after my mother had died for all those  who had donated their bodies over the past year.  I found the service surprisingly affecting.  During the service, the poem I have copied and pasted below was read.  It was written by a student who used a cadaver in the anatomy course she had just completed.  Her name is Amy Marie Milligan and the poem is entitled "Anatomy Teacher".  I ran across it yesterday when I was going through stuff and decided to include it here.

                         When I touched your hands, I touched the hands that had felt the chill of ninety-four                      winters, fingers that had stretched in the sunlight of as many springs.

When I touched your feet, I touched the feet that had walked the paths of nine decades, toes curling and uncurling through the uncertainty of five wars.

When I touched your arms, I touched the arms that braced you from and embraced the world, a world I know only through historians and faded photographs.

When I stared into the shell of your eyes, I saw the screen upon which a million irreplaceable scenes had been played, visions of a world rapidly changing at once both like and unlike my own.

When I held your heart in my hands, in a moment filled with awe and grace, I held a heart whose mysteries I will never know, a heart that gave me the gift of itself.

When you invited me to know you, to be a guest in the house that your spirit left, you forever altered my life.

My feet, with the knowledge of yours, will walk into the future carrying you with me.

My hands, as they reach to comfort and heal, will do so never forgetting the delicacy of yours.

My eyes, as they sweep across the landscapes of my future, will find in it reflections of the world I saw in yours.

My heart, in the rhythm of its beating, will carry with it the stillness and wonder of your heart, lying silently in my hands.

 

This poem was somehow a great comfort at the time it was recited at the service.  It has stuck with me although the service was 20 years ago.  My intention is to arrange to donate my body to the University of Wisconsin Medical School.  However, as my wife will tell you (and me), if I don't do it, it won't get done.