![Typically dressed in a white T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, Gao has been working for the RCSC for over a decade, full-time yet voluntarily. [Photo/szqgjx.org]](U330P886T1D3519F12DT20111103131206.jpg "Typically dressed in a white T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, Gao has been working for the RCSC for over a decade, full-time yet voluntarily. [Photo/szqgjx.org]")
(Ecns.cn)--For years, Gao Min has been both loved and hated as a tissue and organ donation coordinator. She has brought hope to many dying patients while challenging a thousand-year-old funeral tradition, where people deem cutting a dead body as utter impiety.
"Every donation is a tough task for me," said Gao, 45, who is now a volunteer for the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) Shenzhen Branch and responsible for arranging tissue and organ transplants.
Typically dressed in a white T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, Gao has been working for the RCSC for over a decade, full-time yet voluntarily.
Except for getting reimbursed for phone bills and travel expenses, Gao makes no money from this job. She even depends on her younger sister financially sometimes. By frugality, she manages to get along on two meals a day, skipping lunch.
"My family was pretty poor. I used to not to have breakfast when I was a student. Moreover, people usually feel more tired after lunch, don't they?" asked Gao.
Gao was born in a small village in Shanghe, Shandong Province. She got divorced at 26 and came to Shenzhen, Guangdong Province to take care of her sister's child, where, she quite accidentally developed a link with the RCSC in a blood donation.
In 2000, she joined the RCSC as a volunteer when attending a party held by the organization for all blood donors. However, at that time, Gao knew nothing about tissue and organ donation and had never thought that she would become engaged in it enthusiastically one day.
In the summer of 2005, Gao received a call from a mother of an 18-year-old girl who was killed in a car accident. The mother offered to donate her daughter's tissues and organs, including her liver, kidneys, and cornea, which later healed three patients.
"She was so smart and beautiful, so are the receivers of her organs. In this way, my daughter will never leave the world," the mother sobbed, begging Gao for help with a rather firm voice.
Greatly moved, Gao eventually had the wish fulfilled, which sequentially brought her to her current post. She took the job despite a warning from her colleague that "it is a hard work. You've got to be well prepared."
From then on, Gao's life has been full of sorrow and joy.
