Donate.

Life month has ended, but UK Health Care has a special exhibit that will continue to honor organ donors for a few months longer.

Dear Donor showcases letters from recipients of life saving organs to the donors who have often lost their lives.

Dear Donor, This is the day the Lord is made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

This is a Bible verse that I say each morning as I get out of bed and my feet hit the floor.

Before my transplant, there were days I couldn't get out of bed and function a daily routine.

You gifted me with a liver over 20 years ago and I feel so blessed.

Thank you so much for your decision to be an organ donor.

Life is precious.

Pass it on.

In the fall of last year, we asked all of our transplant patients if they would want to write a letter as if they could write to their donor.

And so we got this outpouring of letters and support from our patients and decided that it needed to be represented with the respect that these people deserve.

So we've created an art installation in the hospital here at UK Health Care that showcases all of the letters that we received in that project.

There were definitely several themes that kind of popped up over and over again.

Most of them were weird.

Just very, very grateful.

But a few things that we saw where people really showcasing or sharing what they'd been able to do.

So we had people say they were able to walk a child down the aisle or they met a grandchild or continued in a career in some way or took a trip that they'd always wanted to do.

And so they really got to share bits of their lives.

In May 2000, I was received a liver transplant.

I continued teaching for 22 more years.

I was able to see both of my children graduate from college.

I could take care of my father and just do other family numerous things that I wouldn't have been able to do.

You know, I'm very appreciative, thankful, and I want to let that be known.

And also, I'm very I want to show other people to how organ donation affects them in for them to talk it over with their family.

The other thing that we saw a lot were people in some ways feeling guilty for the most part, especially those who partook in this project, their donor is deceased.

And you can feel some of that guilt and and just the awareness that that this was a huge gift so that they could live.

But then on top of that, making sure that that gift isn't in vain or wasn't taken for granted.

So there are a lot of people here saying that they're going to make the most of their life, that they want to pass that on if they can, that they are now advocates for organ donation so that others may live and really want to show or share that their gift was not taken lightly because it came at such a large cost.

We want to make sure that people are very aware of organ donation.

How you do that.

To have those conversations with your families and and consider registering as an organ donor.

And then I think the second piece, especially for those who wrote letters, is again, to celebrate the people who gave and the families, because the families who are still here are the ones who are missing their loved one and feeling the after effects of that.

And so really, to honor them, to remember them, and make sure that their gift is seen and celebrated.

Dear Donor will be on display through June 28th at Duke's Chandler Hospital.

And this programing note, Sunday morning at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Getty, I talk with a UK transplant surgeon and a kidney recipient.

Don't miss that.

Sunday at 11:30 a.m..