Let me introduce you to a pathetic coward

This is the picture of a SAD, PATHETIC, MISERABLE, SNIVELING LITTLE COWARD !

I want you to help me expose his cowardice.

YES, it is me. Am image from my younger days but it is still the image of a SAD, PATHETIC, MISERABLE, SNIVELING LITTLE COWARD who should be expose and despised for his cowardice.

Please read what I am about to write then share the bog on social media to make this coward cringe with embarrassment. He deserves your contempt.

Yesterday was blood donors day. I reached a bit of a milestone -  20 pints donated. PATHETIC !

Wind back the clock to 1973, round about the time this picture was taken. I was a student training to become a teacher. The college matron, a fearsome but loving lady, Mrs Meek received an award for donating fifty pints of blood. She tried to encourage we students to become blood donors.

NO WAY !  No way was I going to let some vampire stick a needle in my arm and drain off a pint of my precious blood !  NOT NEVER NO WAY !

WHY ?  Because I was a coward. A pathetic coward.

Wind the clock on now to 1983, the year Rebekah was born.  If I had not been such a coward I would by then have donated 30 pints of my blood to help doctors save lives.

I did not donate a single tiny drop. Not one tiny drop.

It was not long after her birth that Rebekah was diagnosed with chronic renal failure. I am trying to think how many times she went into surgery, eight I think. Each time she had an operation she received a transfusion of blood from a donor. A pint of blood and a pint of love from anonymous person somewhere in the country.

STILL her father did not sign up as a blood donor. DESPICABLE. I made every excuse but each and every excuse was a lie. What kind of  man does that make me ?

Years later, many years later I finally conquered my fears and donated that first pint.  Between Beck's birth and my finally signing up as a blood donor I could have given one hundred pints. Had I not been such a sad, pathetic coward my donation yesterday would not have been my 20th pint but my 140th !

There are 366 Ronald McDonald Houses world-wide. 366 houses each accommodating families who have children sick in hospital. That means at every minute of every day something like TEN THOUSAND families are being cared for.

Every family has a child sick in hospital. TEN THOUSAND CHILDREN.

How many of those children received a blood transfusion yesterday ?  One in fifty ? That's probably a fair estimate = 200. Ten times the number of the donations I have made. But even if I had been a donor since 1973 I still could not have given enough blood to help the children of families in Ronald McDonald Houses for even a single day.

Oh YEH I am banging on and on and on about my Frog Challenge on Saturday. How I am going to overcome my fear of frogs. How brave I am going to be. What a wonderful person I am !

RUBBISH. I am a coward, a sad pathetic, miserable coward who failed to help doctors save the lives of 120 people. 120 people who included my own daughter. Thank goodness there were people around who were not such cowards.

I am always talking about love - The Wave of Love. Since Beck died on Friday 19th May the wave of love that has washed over myself and my family has been unbelievable. I have met some very special people whose love is beyond measure. I want to tell you about just some of them in a moment but first let me suggest something before I do.

I have just made a Google search for this picture to add here to the blog. While doing that I found another picture here on the right.

That is something I did not know. So being a coward I failed not 120 people but 360 !

When a pint of blood is donated that is the physical, the mechanical thing. Above that is the love factor. When you give a pint of blood you also give a gallon of love.

This love thing............... I call my daily blog The Wave Of Love. It usually gets between 65 and 99 readers a day. The most it has ever received in a day is 117. I want this blog today to smash all records.

At the beginning of this week I was feeling very stressed. Everything was getting on top of me. I just could not cope with the work I have to do for OurRebekah.

On Tuesday I had a meeting with Scott, The National Trust's Operations Manager at Stowe. He showed me love and all of my stress was washed away by the wave.

Yesterday I popped into Wrigglies Exotic Pets to chat with manager Ro ahead of Saturday's Frog Challenge.  Ro you have absolutely no idea how much you inspire me It will be with pride that I introduce you to everyone who comes along on Saturday.

I had an e-mail yesterday from Libby who is manager of Ronald McDonald House in Birmingham. She thanked me for the gifts I had sent to the house from Sheffield Wednesday's game last Sunday. 

Libby and her team may run a physical Ronald McDonald House but in truth they operate a MANSION OF LOVE. It is not a metaphor to say that love oozes out of every wall.

This morning I will e-mail Libby to thank her for thanking me. The Wave Of Love goes

backwards and forwards you know. Of course it does.

When I go to a blood donor session the staff there always thank me for donating. It's not a have nice day empty marketing phrase but words spoken out of love.  Yesterday evening my phone buzzed with a text thanking me for my donation. OK, yes a robot sent it but did so on the orders of a real person. Sometimes even a robot can show love. In a week or so I will receive another  text message to tell me in which hospital my blood was used.  I won't be told the patient of course but the text is a text of love telling me where my blood was used.

When I go to give blood I always turn things round when I am thanked by staff, I always say NO IT IS I WHO SHOULD THANK YOU.  I also make a point of telling the person who actually takes my blood the story of my cowardice. No matter who I am speaking to I always receive a similar reply: DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT YOU ARE DONATING NOW.

Coming to The Frog Challenge on Saturday are David and Susan Hopkins, Mayor and Mayoress of Milton Keynes. They are extra special people and our town should be proud to have them as our Mayor and Mayoress.

Susan said something to me a few months back, powerful words which have stuck in my mind ever since. She said IT DOES NOT MATTER WHICH CHARITY OR GOOD CAUSE YOU SUPPORT PROVING YOU DO SUPPORT ONE. 

That's love isn't it ?

I am going to tell you something else that was said to me and has stuck firmly in my mind. Let me introduce you to Doctor Phil Mason from Oxford University Hospital and one of the nation's top consultants in his field. He said to me I DO NOT TREAT MY PATIENTS I CARE FOR THEM.      Love !

And this below is Doctor Jarvis. He was my college doctor when cowardice prevented me becoming a blood donor. He went on to become our family doctor until he retired shortly after 
Rebekah was diagnosed as a small child to be suffering from renal failure.

When Rebekah died he wrote to my family, he sent us an incredible and beautiful letter. How many tens of thousands of patients has that man cared for during his career ?  He retired thirty years ago yet still remembered Rebekah and took time to write to us. When I thanked him he shrugged his shoulders and said of course he would write, not to do so would be wrong. L O V E !

If someone had said to me all those years ago it was not a case of donating a pint of blood but giving a gallon of love I think I would not have been such a pathetic coward.

If you are already a blood donor I would ask you to continue but to change the way you donate. Continue to give a pint three times a year but alongside this PLEASE also give a gallon of love.

Do not be a pathetic coward the way I was so so many years, years which are filled for me with deep regret.

Don't look upon the act as giving a pint of your blood. Set it firmly in your mind that you are giving a GALLON of your love.

Twenty pints. It will take another ten years before I emulate the achievement of College Matron Mrs Meek and receive my 50 pints badge. I am determined I will achieve that and when I do perhaps it will take away just some of my cowardice.