Baby Donor

"Negative" is something I am positively

put off by, the why to this an obvious
distaste for rudeness, crudeness, and
complaining, draining attributes best left
to others, druthers being that they stay
so far away from me that I don't have
to hear their words, their put-downs,
pointing fingers, woe-is-me-ing. Except
I learned today that negative is good
in terms of blood and certain virus.
Cytomegalo, to be exact, and I don't have it.
Which means that when I donate blood,
they designate it for the babies who might
catch the flu-like virus otherwise. A baby
donor, it is called, and all the trouble
in the questions and the needle prick
is worth it even more, now that I know
my blood is saving babies. And speaking
of donating blood, whose lives
are being saved by yours?


(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013

I'm a slow bleeder and giving blood is never"fun" but when my granddaughter Jasmine and I saw the Big Red Bus parked outside Walmart today, I decided to just do it. I used to donate as often as I could, like clockwork, but I've gotten out of the habit in the past few years. Learning that I'm a "baby donor" gives me more incentive than the $10 Walmart gift card I received (but that was nice, too!).