One donor's story: Margaret Nelson

  • St. Anthony
  • Organ , Tissue , Eyes
  • Deceased Donor: 2014

Margaret was truly a beautiful person – loving, generous, fun, loyal, intelligent, curious, silly, genuine and compassionate. All these words describe her but can’t possibly capture the incredible gift she was in so many lives. Her strength and determination brought her through many challenges in her life including surviving breast cancer and a ruptured brain aneurysm.  These trials only served to bring her into a deeper understanding of the gift that is life.  Margaret took nothing for granted.  She brought her heart and her presence to everyone she encountered – family, friends, children, animals, even strangers.

Margaret loved being a mom, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, and a friend and was always there for those she loved.  She cherished her three volunteer jobs – working in hospice administration, driving for meals on wheels and sitting with the dying as they transitioned out of their physical bodies.  Traveling, reading, learning anything and everything and having a good time with her family and friends are all things she loved to do.

Margaret made the decision to be a donor quietly through her driver’s license. She didn’t like to draw attention to herself, she simply lived her life doing what she felt was right.  Margaret’s love lives on – in the lives she saved and improved through her donation and in the hearts of those who knew and love her.

“May God bless and keep you always, may your wishes all come true, may you always do for others and let others do for you. May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung,

May you stay forever young.”

                                                       – Bob Dylan, “Forever Young”

Margaret Nelson

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