Tammi Shanks could have died in surgery.

She could have died in recovery or years from now from in old age.

But she didn’t. The 46-year-old Edmonds woman died on Nov. 30, waiting for a lung transplant.

Shanks had been at the top of the LifeCenter Northwest organ registry, which covers Alaska, Oregon, Montana, north Idaho and Washington, for a week.

Are we to believe that not one person matching Shanks’ blood type in the aforementioned states died in the days leading up to Nov. 30?

Less than 30 percent of Amercians are organ donors; in 2008, between 3,500 and 4,000 people registered nationwide, according to statistics from Donate Life Northwest and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

There are 100,000 people in the United States waiting for an organ transplant, and 18 of them will die today, according to Donate Life Northwest.

It’s understandable that people avoid the issue. No one wants to think about dying.

But without record, be it a conversation with family or the heart symbol on a driver’s license, doctors cannot harvest healthy organs for transplant.

For some, the decision not to donate organs is religious. But why, if God didn’t intend for our blood and organs to be shared, were we created in a such a way that beyond the grave each of us has the potential to save and improve countless lives?

Parent’s avoid the subject in front of their children. Newlyweds avoid the subject, because it’s a downer. Perhaps they’re right.

Who in their right mind discusses organ donation around the dinner table; what kind of parents discuss whether or not they’d allow their children’s organs to be donated should tragedy strike?

But sharing your feelings — making records of your opinions — on the topic is the only to guarantee your wishes are carried out when you die.

We can no longer delay this conversation for a “more appropriate setting” or “a better time.”

Be an organ donor.