When I arrived at the driver’s license office before 8 a.m. this morning, the line was already snaking down the stairs and onto the parking lot outside the still locked door. But no worries, I had made an appointment weeks before to renew my driver’s license, and I was determined not to wait more than two hours this time. My appointment was the first one of the day. When the doors opened and the line in front of me moved forward, I was at the reception counter in seven minutes.

No record of the appointment? I repeated to the clerk. Yes, I am sure I made the appointment at Silas Creek instead of Patterson Avenue. Yes, I see that the line is not terribly long. I’ll wait. (silent sigh)

I moved to a seat in the waiting area, my ticket number attached to my expiring driver’s license and silently counted 10 persons in front of me. Directly in front of me, a young man with close cropped hair who looked vaguely European sat with his backpack at his feet and a driver’s manual in his hands. Another young man, his curly hair straggling over his ears, stood reading a vampire novel. Between them was a large poster: “These North Carolinians are alive today. . . because someone like you said, ‘Yes.'” Three smiling faces on the poster were identified as Destiny in Charlotte, NC, Jon in Greenville, NC and Kara in Cary, NC. I looked at the red heart stamped on my license. Again I looked at those  faces on the poster: Destiny with neatly braided hair and elbows propped on her knees, Jon, perhaps a young father himself, and Kara dressed in black formal drape as high school seniors wear for their last high school class photos–and tears came.

How could I not have remembered? I had not been to THIS driver’s license office since the July day sixteen years ago when I brought my daughter Elizabeth in to apply for her learner’s permit. She had asked if she could be an organ donor before even taking the test to begin the process toward getting her driver’s license. It’s the ultimate recycling, Mom, she said. Why wouldn’t I want somebody else to have my body parts when I can no longer use them? I think she was more proud of the red heart on her learner’s permit than the possibility of driving practice that it offered.

Why had I made an appointment at THIS office? I probably did make the appointment at the other one and came here by mistake. Too late. Too late to go to the other one today. Too late.

Less than three months after Elizabeth had her choice to donate organs witnessed at the driver’s license office, my husband and I followed her wishes. We donated her heart valves and corneas. Because she was dead on arrival to the hospital after the car crash, those organs were all we were able to donate. She had a huge heart full of love and laughter and the bluest eyes with vision so clear, so I imagined that her heart valves and corneas gave new stamina and clarity to those who received her recycled parts.

Ticket number A107 to Station 1. I moved to the other room and sat down at the examiner’s desk, still shaken from remembering the day I had brought my daughter here. We had stood in almost the same place where I was now sitting as she made her wishes known. Her voice was purposeful, her smile genuine. I was surprised at her insistence. And today I was surprised that I was ambushed by this memory.

The examiner, a woman with kind eyes, listened as I apologized for my tears. I explained what had happened with my daughter and told her about the writing group that had offered balm for ten years and about the book just published that we hope will offer help to others. She told me about a friend whose son had died in a motorcycle crash and how his mother’s and his brother’s life had changed afterward. She left me with a blessing. I plan to recycle it.

And my driver’s license is renewed for eight years. Maybe I will make an appointment for the Silas Creek office in 2020.