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Our Nicky’s Heart
Nothing can prepare you for the death of a loved one. However loss is central to our lives. We cannot prevent it. Just as the tree drop its leaves, making visible the beauty of its structure, so does loss strip us down to our basic nature. It is in this stage of seeming neglect and defencelessness, that our inner strength comes to the fore. It is often through brokenness and loss that we in fact grow into our humanity and develop the compassion that connects us to others. But sometimes grief make us suppress our inner feelings, and that can destroy a functional family. “Our Nicky’s Heart”, is a short story by Graham Swift, which deals with this scenario and illustrates how members of a typical household deals with problems as organ donation and grief.

The Randall family lives in the country, at a isolated farm where the father work. When you work at a farm, sons are a good investment to the family, because sons can help you out on the farm with the physical work. Therefore it is a stroke of luck, that the family has 3 sons, but when the mother all of a sudden becomes pregnant she set her hopes high. She wants her fourth child to be a girl, she even pre-names the child Sally. Even though it is a boy she give birth to, she does not complaint.

”When Sally turned out to be Nick she put a good face on her disappointment and never made a grudge of it”.
The new family member Nick is unique, he has a feminine side which differs him from the father´s 2 favourite sons, therefore he become his mother´s favourite. She spoils him, treats him as her little ”princess”, and being the youngest and most feminine of the bunch means he has all the liberties in the world.
“Michael and Eddy would never have been allowed to do this, nor could I, if I’d wanted, but with Nicky it was somehow all right. Somehow it went with Nicky. Mum would have hated stopping him having his own way – he could twist her round his finger.”
The 2 eldest sons Michael and Eddy was supposed to inherit the farm, so they where the father´s favourite, and we know Nicky was the mother´s most adored son, but there was one son left, Mark the outsider. The brother and son Mark is also the narrator in this short story, for that reason he plays a vital role, because the reader comprehend the prior events in the story from his perspective. Before the birth of Nicky, the mother gave all of her attention to Mark, because he was special to. He wants to study and go to school, which makes him useless in his father´s eyes, and the opposite in the mother´s view of him. When Nicky is born, the mother neglects Mark just like his father did before.

Nicky´s motorcycle accident changes everything, the death has a traumatic effect on the rest of the family. The family has now an problematical challenge a head of them, they have to work together as a family and decide whether they want to give Nicky´s heart to another family or not. In this situation one could think that the father being in charge, would decide what to do, but he nervously backs out and accepts the mothers decision.

“Twenty-five years of being in charge of
400 acres and all that lived on it, generations of Randalls ruling the roost, of which he was the latest heir, hadn’t made him capable at the moment of being the one to step forward and speak.”

The whole situation is unpleasant, and despite of having second thoughts the mother gives, the other family permission to take her son’s heart. She imagines that another ”Nicky” somewhere benefits from the heart.

It is kind of ironic that in this situation the eldest 2 sons, is not giving their opinion on the organ donation, but the outsider Mark is. Maybe the accident is making the father change his traditional view on Mark, ergo the accident is maybe not just negative but positive ass well.

Both organ donation and dealing with grief is 2 main themes in this short story.
The family did not work together therefore the problems concerning organ donation, was not a family decision but a individual verdict by the mother.
The narrator Mark and the rest of the family will never forget Nicky’s accident, because human beings want a family, who can really pay attention to what is going on inside them, and Mark’s family did not pay attention or talk about the problems, they just suppress them.
The Randall family and other families in this situation has to accept their feelings. They are even-handed. However strange they may feel the are part of the healing process. But losing a loved one is not uncomplicated, and we should remember that there is no right way to grieve.


C: For or against organ donation?
On April 19, 2002, my grandfather passed away of cancer. He had been ill since December of 2001, and he needed a kidney transplant. Unfortunately, he never received one, resulting in the cause of his death.

Personally I would want to donate but I think I would have a hard time donating my loved ones bits and pieces. I think that transplants are a wonderful thing and they can entirely transform the life of the recipient. I would be glad for my organs to go to somebody else. Nevertheless, making that choice for someone else has to be arduous. Transplant organs are not taken from 'dead' dead people. If the person's systems have completely shut down then the organs are no good. So individuals who are brain-dead have their bodies kept on a life support system until the operation to remove the organs which is called harvesting. You can see your loved one with a heart beat, breathing on a ventilator, and have to agree to have their organs taken away and life support turned off. Legitimately they are dead as there is no brain activity but their body is still active. It Must be very emotional and difficult.
Some people have religious beliefs that prevent donation as well, but still each day people receive an organ transplant. However, people also die each day waiting for transplants that cannot take place because of the lack of donated organs.

Death is a poignant and final affair, especially through accident or terminal illness. By donating one can continue living through someone else. Likewise you can resuscitate someone else’s life after you are over and done with your own. Imaging that I as a donor might, give a little child life after my downfall, is a wonderful dream and the most precious gift in the world. The gift of Life.