Organ donors celebrated through local tree planting
Aspecial ceremony was held at Jacob-nichol Park on the corner of Jacques Cartier Street and Portland Boulevard in Sherbrooke this past Friday morning, during which a gingko biloba tree was planted as a living memorial to organ donors. The tree was a donation by the family of the late Andrée Duhamel, herself an organ donor, who grew the tree from seed and nurtured it through several struggles for survival prior to her own death in 2014.
“This is more than a tree,” said Duhamel’s widower, Léopold Gaudreault.“this is a witness to the fact that life cannot go on from day to day without acts of generousity from all of us.”
Gaudreault spoke at length about the memorial and his wife’s efforts to live a life of everyday kindness, but emphasized that part of the point of donating what the family thinks of as “her tree” to be a public memorial for organ donors is that the importance of doing good for others goes beyond any one person’s individual struggles.
“This is the only park in Quebec dedicated to organ donors, and if it were up to me, I would rename this park,” Gaudreault said. “When I come here, I read two or three names, but what I see behind those names is people who are still alive because of their generousity. For me this is the park of generousity.”
The ceremony was attended by members of Duhamel’s family as well as rep-
resentatives of the city, visitors from as far away as London, England, and Richard Tremblay, the President of the Canadian Organ and Tissue Donors’ Association.
“On the central monument here in the park, we find a quote that is worth remembering,” Tremblay said, gesturing to the large stone memorial to organ donors found in the centre of the park. “There is no greater love than giving our heart for someone we do not even know.”
The association president noted that the monument, unveiled in 1994, now bears some 4,382 names, with more being added on a regular basis. Each of those people, he pointed out, touched as many as 15 lives with their decision to become a donor.
For Gaudreault the message of the day was to cultivate kindness, but he also emphasized the importance of the tree as a symbol and living monument.
“The Gingko biloba is one of those rare species on the planet that has spanned the ages; it has been present on Earth for 300 million years, since the time of the dinosaurs,” he said. “Since that time nearly 98 per cent of life on earth has died, but these trees live on.”
The result, he said, is a perfect symbol of the importance of celebrating and nurturing life.
A commemorative plaque explaining the significance of the tree and the history of its planter was also unveiled alongside the new sapling in order to ensure that future visitors will understand the role it was meant to play.