On Sunday afternoon at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland, 49-year-old Anna Maharaj lit a candle as part of an annual remembrance service.
She has done this almost every year for 24 years to honour someone she could never meet and whose name she will never know. Perhaps that person’s family is there in the cathedral – or not. It doesn’t really matter to Maharaj. Her gratitude is inexpressible, anyway.
When Maharaj was 24, she received a life-altering gift of two kidneys from a deceased donor. A family, in their grief, agreed to participate in New Zealand’s organ transplant system.
An organ recipient lights a candle to remember organ donors at a service in Auckland.
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For the three years prior, Maharaj spent 18 months in an intensive care unit and close to 20 hours a week on dialysis due to lupus, an autoimmune disease. Because of that donation, she was able to continue living. She is a mother and teaches at a primary school in Auckland.
She intends to come to the service every year for the rest of her life.
“I think about my donor every single day.”
Organ Donation New Zealand held the first Thanksgiving Service in 1998 at Auckland’s Holy Trinity Cathedral. Now, two other annual services take place in Wellington and in the South Island, alternating between Christchurch and Dunedin. It’s a moment for organ transplant recipients and donor families as well as those involved in the transplant process to gather, acknowledging the extraordinary gift that often comes from someone’s profound loss.
About 400 people attended Sunday’s service. It was a diverse group. There were people of different ethnicities and ages, including children. Some had outward indications of a faith. Some were dressed casually in shorts, t-shirts and hoodies. Others wore more formal attire. Yet, their lives have all been touched in some way by organ donation. Even the choir had a member who had received a kidney donation.
The annual Thanksgiving Service for organ donation is held at Holy Trinity Church in Auckland.
Serena Solomon / RNZ
“For all the emotions that come rushing out of the room during this service, I want to acknowledge those,” says the Very Reverend Anne Mills from the pulpit. She noted that while the service reflected the venue’s faith, she hoped people of all faiths, or no faith, would feel safe.
As Mills spoke, a woman quietly wept in the back of the church, gazing at the image of a man in a hospital bed who appeared to be on a ventilator. Organ donation is typically only possible if a donor’s death occurs in an intensive care unit. About one percent of deaths occur this way in New Zealand, making organ donation exceedingly precious. There are 60 to 70 donors annually, and they often donate more than one organ.
Because of privacy, recipients are told nothing about who their organ donor was. Donor families are told vague details such as the age and sex of recipients. To keep that veil of anonymity during the service, those who are asked to speak refrain from mentioning specific dates of when their loved one died or when they received their donation.
Andrew Begley spoke about the day he found out he would receive a liver and pancreas transplant.
Serena Solomon / RNZ
Andrew Begley, 29, shared his story from the pulpit, detailing the day in 2021 when he received the call from ODNZ that a pancreas and liver donation had come through. Who gets priority on the potential recipient list largely comes down to urgency and chance of a successful transplant.
Begley was moving out of a flat back into his mum’s place because of poor health due to a rare liver disease. He had given up hope of a life-saving transplant. He even put his phone on silent that day, so the ODNZ had to call his mum.
“I wasn’t sure what to do. I was going through waves of crying and laughing, just completely lost…” he says, periodically taking deep breaths to get through his speech.
“I managed to call some mates to tell them things were about to change.”
Begley went on to successfully battle a cancer diagnosis following a difficult transplant journey.
Musicians play the erhu during a remembrance service in Auckland for organ donation.
Serena Solomon / RNZ
Like Maharaj and dozens of others at the service, Begley lit a candle of remembrance at the front of the church. A musician who had received a liver transplant played the Titanic movie theme song ‘My Heart Will Go On’ on the erhu, a Chinese stringed instrument. Some walked forward with the vibrancy of good health. Others came aided by walkers or with oxygen tanks in tow, a reminder that organ donation is not a cure for many diseases, but a treatment.
Tami Neuman’s daughter, Yahel, donated five organs when she passed away ten years ago.
Serena Solomon / RNZ
Once the candles were lit by recipients, donor families came forward to receive their gift – a plant called a Donation Camellia. Tami Neuman already has one in her garden. She has attended the service for 10 years since the death of her daughter, Yahel. The 22-year-old died of a suspected cardiac arrest in her final semester of a business and marketing degree at Victoria University of Wellington. In her death, she was able to donate five organs: her heart, two kidneys, liver, and lungs.
“[Yahel] always looked after everybody else,” Neuman says, describing her daughter’s big brown eyes and bubbly personality.
Neuman’s is one of the few donor families in New Zealand to have met a recipient of their loved one’s donation. It happened serendipitously at a remembrance service. Some years at the service, she sits with the person who received her daughter’s liver.
“Nothing takes the edge off the grief, but for me, using her memory, and telling people about her and promoting and encouraging people to become organ donors, that’s my mission in life since she passed away.”
Donation Chameleons are handed out to donor families at a remembrance service in Auckland.
Serena Solomon / RNZ
While New Zealanders can indicate a preference for organ donation on their driver’s license, the donor’s immediate family must give permission. The offer to donate from medical staff almost always comes in the midst of shock and grief for that family, as it did for Neuman and her husband. However, it was an immediate ‘yes’. Neuman has seen the radical impact of donation in the health of friends who received kidney donations.
Like other donor families who request it, Neuman receives an update on the health of her daughter’s recipients. All but one donation was successful. She imagines them thriving, working, and spending time with their families.
“It’s just a joy that she is still living in them.”
Over the past four years, terminal ovarian cancer has been shoving Cora Torr, 61, towards life’s exit door. To offset this rude intruder, she’s enlisted the help of a death doula.
Talking about what we want after we die is a difficult conversation for many, and a Taupō mum and her 15-year-old son have come up with an idea to make the whole process easier.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
