The Blood of Life

I went to give blood today.

It had been a long time, since before my son’s death. I had been a regular donor before but blood donation, among other things, has been put on hold over the last 20 months as I have been trying to cope with pain, grief, and the hard reality of unrelenting loss.

It has been on my heart for a while. What better antidote for grief than to flip it around and help someone else. But like most platitudes—they are easier said than done. I just did not feel the urgency, didn’t have the time, always too busy, too self-absorbed with mourning, coping, and the demands of life which just don’t let up. It is really a sad state of affairs when you are too “busy” to save a life- maybe that of a total stranger or maybe the life of a family member- but does it really matter?

I’ve found that I must put it on my schedule. If I put it on the calendar, I have a much better chance of doing it. If I leave it to convenience, the tyranny of the urgent always wins out. So, a couple of weeks ago, I set an appointment to give blood; put it on my phone calendar for a Friday. The day arrives and I am asking myself- why did I make it a Friday? Friday is payroll day and then an unexpected truck had to be unloaded and I missed my 1100 donation appointment. I don’t like missing appointments, ever. I make it to the mobile blood bus early afternoon and apologetically walk in. Blood supplies are at an emergency level, so they are still happy to see my tardy veins and are excited to liberate some of my much-needed O+ blood.

I go to the little cubicle and answer “no’s” to the long litany of questions which makes me thankful that I live a healthy, monogamous, drug-free life.

Then I see it.

It hits like a runaway locomotive.

Last blood donation.

August 8^th, 2022.

Does the heart somehow know things the mind does not register. Was this an unconscious reason I had been putting off giving blood all these past months?

The last time I donated blood was the day before the death of my son.

I break down in sobs inside the privacy of my little cubicle, thinking about the brevity of life, and how my life is now forever divided between two epochs-before my son’s death and after. That is now the foundational timestamp of every story told and every memory recalled- was that BQD(before Quint’s death) or AQD(after Quint’s death)?

August 8^th, 2022, BQD.

 As I was giving blood that day, I had no idea that I, we, would be hit with a sledgehammer the very next evening. That life as I knew it would change forever. That my life, faith, and foundations, and those of our tight knit family, would be flipped upside down and shaken to its core. How can things so apocalyptically change in the blink of an eye…or in the falling of a tree.

And yet somehow, I move on, one painstaking step at a time. Maybe, at some point, I can start giving again in little ways like my blood, like service to others, like listening to those who need to talk.

We are all in this life together after all.

Make a difference.

Give blood.

Give of yourself so others might live. It’s simple but never convenient. I would say that it is the ultimate random act of kindness. If you are like me, I often wonder how I would respond in a cataclysmic event- pulling someone from a burning car; a traumatic casualty situation; a mass shooting. I’d like to think that I would rise to the occasion and be prepared to render aid and help others. But to be brutally honest, I could just freeze and cower in fear and just try to save myself. We really don’t know, do we? It’s a humbling thought. We like to think of ourselves as superheroes when most of us, me included, are barely hovering around the average mark on a good day.

If I told you could literally save the life of one to three people every eight weeks, would you do it? Could you do it? That’s six to eighteen people a year you are giving new life to. Giving blood will not make any headlines but to that random person who requires blood on their really bad day, you are a superhero. And I believe that the best superheroes are those who wear masks and give with no expectation of recognition. That is what a blood donor is- an ordinary person like you and me taking an hour out of their busy day to make a life-altering difference for someone they will never know or meet.

 As usual, Jesus has some profound commentary on this thought:

But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.   Matthew 6:3 NLT

Blood donors epitomize Matthew 6:3.

For many years I could not give blood. I forget exactly why. It had something to do with some of the underdeveloped countries I had “visited” compliments of my time in the Marine Corps– Iraq or Turkey, perhaps. The “Corps” also mandated I take some anti-malarial pills during that same timeframe which also put me on the “ineligible to donate list” for quite a few years. So, I was relieved when those restrictions finally timed out.

Yet, I don’t particularly enjoy giving blood. I’m one of those who can’t bring myself to watch the moment of needle insertion. I still get a little light-headed and queasy. I always think of my son, Quint, as I’m gazing elsewhere as the needle goes in, remembering his stories about he and his fellow 18Ds (Special Forces Medical Sergeant) during their medical training.

They would often practice after hours, giving each other IVs at the beach, after intense workouts, in low light conditions with headlamps, in bouncing vehicles, even while intentionally inebriated, to practice and perfect this perishable skill under the harshest of conditions. In their line of work, they rarely, if ever had the luxury of a quiet, sterile, well-lit, air-conditioned lab to perform these procedures. They even practiced drawing their own blood, I’m told. Not for me, thank you very much. I’ll leave that to the pros- the other unsung heroes who draw our blood, test it, and store it so that others may live. You have all my respect and thanks.

Go set the appointment, put it on your calendar and save a life or two or three.

I promise you; it will be appreciated by someone you will never meet.

And it’s an easy way to be an everyday, ordinary, American hero.

We need more of those, today.

Just like you.

______________________________

This first appeared in The Havok Journal on April 24, 2024.

Tab Taber is a Gold-Star Dad–father of SSG George L. Taber V, a Green Beret Medical Sergeant from 7th SFG who died during a violent storm on Mt. Yonah while in the Mountain phase of Ranger School in August 2022. Tab journals to process his grief and to recollect memories of his son. Occasionally he shares his written thoughts with The Havok Journal and on Instagram @gltiv. He retired from the Military (8 years Marines;15 years Army) in 2014 and now resides in NE Florida where he runs a 4th generation wholesale plant nursery. He can be reached at tabtaber7@gmail.com.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.