April is Donate Life Month, so it’s a great time to learn about the life-changing effects of organ donation for both the recipients of the organs and for loved ones coping with the death of someone close to them.

Organ donation is something I’ve always agreed with and thought important. When I got my first driver’s license at the tender age of 16, I had no problem affixing a decal to the back of my credential proclaiming my wishes as an organ donor, a pledge I’ve renewed plenty of times in the succeeding years.

For most of my life, however, including my first few years as Maine’s secretary of state, the true scope of the importance of organ donation escaped me. Spreadsheets, timelines and flowcharts of administrative duties sometimes hide the emotional explosiveness of what people go through in times of tragedy.

I was attending a regular conference of secretaries of state in Michigan some years back, and I heard the story of then-Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s loss of his only child — his adult daughter, Rachel — to a crash caused by a drunken driver.

Mark and his wife, Nancy, rushed to the hospital after being notified that Rachel had been in a terrible crash. The news was grim, the doctors said, she wasn’t going to make it. After breaking the terrible news, the doctors introduced them to folks from the Donate Life network.

The volunteers and staff gently walked Rachel’s family through the situation, difficult as it was to understand and process. Finally, after a long silence, one of the volunteers asked them what their wishes were. “Rachel’s waiting,” they said. Nancy and Mark made the hard decision to go forward with the donation.

A week after her death, Rachel’s new driver’s license arrived in the mail. In red letters across the front of the license was the word “donor,” indicating Rachel’s choice to give the gift of life.

As time passed, a packet of letters arrived from the recipients of Rachel’s gifts. Among the many grateful messages, the one in particular that struck me was from a young woman who had been an animal lover, but had been bedridden because of a heart condition. Rachel’s gift allowed her to not only live her life normally, but to live her dream of taking horseback riding lessons.

Later, Mark wrote of this letter: “Rachel had a heart so big it could hold every living thing within miles, and now that unstoppable force was giving life to another young girl. Reading and re-reading this letter began to melt the ice that had frozen over my own heart. Rachel’s donation of life was beginning to give me my life back. Rachel was our only child and we would never have her back, but her gift helped us come back to living.”

By the time Mark finished his story, there was scarcely a dry eye in the house. Since we in Maine first took his story and many more like it to heart, we’ve worked to improve our procedures, and gone through the state’s administrative processes and customer interfaces to improve them. Our goal is to make it easier for individuals and their families to prepare for the unthinkable — and to make those plans count.

Since I first worked with Mark Ritchie, I’ve had occasion to talk about organ donation with many recipients and families of donors. All the sentiments I’ve been graced with are similar, if not identical, to those Ritchie expressed more than 11 years after he lost his only child. These decisions help people continue without the loved one they lost.

I urge people who haven’t registered as an organ donor to think about it. The state’s online tool at www.maine.gov/sos/bmv/donatelife/index.htm makes it simple to sign up. You don’t have to wait until you renew your driver’s license — in fact, you don’t need a license at all — and you can also help support donation with a small contribution. Most importantly, you can learn more about how important this act is for you, your family and anyone out there waiting for the gift of life.

Things go wrong in life in spite of our most thoughtful precautions. But with a simple plan, you can help save lives. All it takes is your intent to do so.

Matthew Dunlap is Maine’s secretary of state.

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