I was feeling crappy today. I don't know why, I just was. You know, that state of general malaise in which you realize you may be some combination of stupid, slow, lazy, ineffective and it dawns on you that your life might suck, or at least has the potential to suck at some point. Blah.

Then the phone rang, and I didn't answer it. But i did listen to the message in which, to paraphrase, a very cheerful woman told me that, essentially, someone was about to die, and my daughter had saved their life. I called her back. We talked for a while. It cheered me up.

My daughter is 9 years-old. I can't wait to tell her what she did. She literally saved a life, without so much as lifting her finger. And now, someone who was going to die, isn't going to die.

When she was born, more than 9 years ago, a nurse asked us if we would be willing to donate her cord blood in case someone ever needed it for a transfusion or transplant. So, rather than throwing the placenta and umbilical cord in the garbage - which is what happens to most of them - they packed it up and put it in a blood bank where it has been stored, until today.

Fast forward to some child in Saint Louis who is losing a battle with Leukemia and needs a transplant. (I don't actually know who is getting the transplant, or why, but I've done enough research to think this is a very plausible scenario.) As we all know from the evening news and countless Movies-Of-The-Week, finding a perfect match for a bone marrow transplant is like finding a needle in a haystack. And without the transplant, people die.

That's where stem-cell transplants come in. But we all also know how politicized and reglion-cized stem-cells have gotten, making it a literal impossibility to just get a stem-cell transplant. So people die.

The umbilical cord and placenta, however, are full of stem cells. And they can be used like bone-marrow transplants to save lives. So, when a donor can't be found in the family, doctors are forced to start that needle in a haystack search for a perfect match to provide a transplant. And, as luck would have it, thanks to increasing donations of cord blood, there are a lot more needles.

So, our daughters placenta and umbilical cord have been sitting in Saint Louis, in a freezer, I guess, waiting to be called to duty. And today, they were.

Today, while our daughter was happily ensconced in her 4th grade classroom playing with her friends (showing off her new pink hair) her stem cells were saving the life of some child who was dying of Leukemia (maybe.)

Here's the beauty of it. We did nothing. That day in August, I gave birth, which i was going to do anyway. All she did was be born. And when asked if we wanted to throw away the placenta or donate it, we chose to donate. It was as simple as that.

I cried. What could be seen as garbage - medical waste - can be stored and literally save a life. That's as cool as it gets.

I won't go too far into the obvious metaphors and symbolism here. BUT, sometimes it is that simple. Sometimes the greatest power we have is in slowing down and making simple decisions that look at the big picture and profoundly change the lives of others.

Spread the word on this one. This is too easy to not do. Think of all the babies born each day across the country. Think of all those stem cells - no controversy required. Think of all the people who's lives can be saved, simply by NOT throwing something away.

Wow.

This certainly changed my day and my perspective. But it actually saved someone's life. I'm humbled. And empowered.

This is a JUST CAUSE!

The Cord Blood Bank that used our daughter's cord blood is Cardinal Glennon in Saint Louis, www.SLCBB.org

The best site for straight-up info is www.marrow.org