It all began with a headache that 45-year-old Tan Choon Yen relieved with painkillers. He had always been a healthy man, a warehouse supervisor at a hardware store in Melaka, Malaysia, and an active temple medium since 2023. Two days later, he collapsed and never opened his eyes again.
At the hospital, his wife Jessica Lam Wen Yunn, 38, heard the worst news: extensive brain hemorrhage, with brain death confirmed after two evaluations. That was when the doctors asked her whether she would be willing to donate his organs. She remembered a recent conversation between the two of them in front of a building at Malacca General Hospital, lit up green for a donation campaign. At that moment, they were only talking about some random topic.
Lam donated her husband’s heart valves, lungs, liver, kidneys and corneas. She kept the skin and bones so that he would retain his appearance at the funeral. The liver went to a one-year-old baby who now, thanks to that decision made in the midst of grief, has the opportunity to grow up healthy.