I woke up from the surgery sobbing. As the anaesthesia wore off, I croaked: “Did I really do it?” It was 2019, and I had just donated my left kidney to a stranger to save their life. Early that morning, I walked into one operating room, while the stranger walked into the one next door. This is known as an altruistic or Good Samaritan donation, and it is fair to say that it is an unusual thing to do: a very small percentage of living kidney donations in my native US are of this type.
As with anything unusual, people have questions. Whenever it comes up, the most frequent question is: “Why?” Frankly, I am puzzled by the question. Why does anyone do anything? In the parable of the Good Samaritan, a man lies on the road, injured and dying. Everyone who walks by ignores him. A man – from Samaria, a faraway place of a different race and religion – stops and cares for him, asking nothing in return. I am not a Christian and I didn’t know that story when I first began trying to explain myself. I wish I had.
