To valentines everywhere – dear valentine,

As you know, upon my death I wish to be cremated, and then buried in a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee mug with four creams and one sugar. Before that, however, I want you to honor my wish to be an organ donor.

Valentine’s Day may seem an odd time to speak to you of my death, but if not at this time of year when you are listening to my heart, then when? And if not to you, to whom do I speak of what I want done with the remains of this one who has loved you so much? ‘Tis the season of the heart, and time then to tell you that I love you more than any other ever, but my heart is pledged to another.

There may come a day when I am going or gone and someone will speak to you of donating my heart and other organs. If you are similar to many other loved ones, at that moment you might ignore my intentions to donate as expressed on my driver’s license and refuse permission for my organs to be taken. This happens so frequently that Maine and other states have recently passed laws saying a family member can only override their loved one’s expressed wish to be an organ donor by signing a statement specifically acknowledging they are refusing that wish.

I am asking you now to never do that to me. I want my organs donated if they are fit to be donated. Please don’t interfere with my wishes for these parts of my body after my death; you will always have the heart of mine that counts, so let someone else have the one that beats.

When I made the decision to be an organ donor I was thinking of the 70,000-plus ill Americans waiting desperately for donated organs, and of the 5,000-plus who die each year while waiting. I was also thinking of you and of me. You see, I had a vision of what these gifts would mean, a vision that was a gift back to me in that moment of contemplation of my death. I was not simply asking why I would take to the grave a heart that someone else needs to live.

In donating I saw a way of living past my death, and of making something good of it. I saw a chance to give an amazing gift one last time – life – and thereby show you one more time I really was as wonderful as you thought. I was thinking the great joy of an organ recipient’s family would sweeten the sadness of my passing. I thought that if the spouse of one who will live with a new heart could say thanks from the heart to the spouse of one who had died and donated, that would ease your pain. The thought of it eases my pain at the thought of my dying.

When I made the decision to donate my heart I did so knowing it would allow someone else to avoid dying early. Then that person could smile on for me after I’m gone, and their smile would be my smile in a way, and their laugh mine. In a way that’s my love they can keep sharing, my hand held again in someone else’s hand. That would be my joy at hearing a lover’s heartbeat in an ear resting against a chest. After I am gone I want my heart to feel again the rush of another Patriots Super Bowl championship bid that comes down to another field goal attempt with seconds to go. I want it to pump blood to another arm throwing a ball for a joyful dog that would chase it through a nuclear blast, to feel again the chest-warming sensation of another daughter married or that first sip of hot coffee on a cold Maine morning.

The idea of my kidneys out there also gives me a thrill. They would spare two people from the torment of dialysis for their kidney failure, and give two lives back. Someone out there would be thanking me every time they urinated in the pot, which is more heartfelt thanks than most of us deserve in a lifetime, and I hope they would know they were damn welcome.

Donating my organs is a way for me to flip the bird to the Grim Reaper. I will die knowing he may have gotten me but I cheated him; of the truck driver who received my right kidney, the teenage girl doctor-wanna-be who received my left kidney, the father of two who got my heart, and the woodworker who received my lungs. They should all have “miles to go before they sleep,” and at that point I will not; it will be my time and I want to do something so that it’s not their time for a long time. Don’t take that satisfaction from me by refusing my request to donate my organs.

I know this is all a confused mixture of selfishness and magnanimity, but I don’t care. If the time ever comes for you to decide about donating my organs, honor me and say yes. That’s part of my spirit in those organs, in those gifts, valentine. Please don’t stop it from living on as long as it can, because as long as it lives it will be whispering that I love you, and that I will always be your valentine.

Erik Steele, D.O. is a physician in Bangor, an administrator at Eastern Maine Medical Center, and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.