I’ve never studied philosophy, read a book on it or even taken a philosophy class. But I’ve developed a philosophy from all the things I’ve learned in my first 39 years on Earth.

And it’s that we are all in this life together. We could call it anti-individualism. Or, maybe a more positive spin: sense of community.

So, let’s start with a short backstory.

My friend’s girlfriend broke up with him in spring 1997. So he and I went to prom together — tuxes, black Chuck Taylors and all.

He ended up getting married and having a daughter a few years later.

Fast forward 15 years and his child was diagnosed with a blood disorder. A disease she is battling to this day.

If you live in Butler, she is your neighbor. She organized a drive where people can be swabbed and added to the global donor pool for searches to be conducted for patients in need of a lifesaving bone marrow transplant.

Four years later I receive an email informing me that I’m a match.

What happened next: I had several phone calls, my blood drawn, some email correspondence, talks with my family, a handful of signatures and then I received my donation date.

I was informed that there are two ways to donate bone marrow. A direct method or through stem cells. It depends on the recipient and the doctor.

Fortunately for me, I was told to do the stem cell method. It is a lot less invasive. It’s basically like giving blood in both arms for four hours.

One needle draws the blood and another needle returns the blood. In between a machine spins my blood, separating the red cells from the white cells. The machine takes the white cells and returns an even flow of my remaining blood to me.

To increase the white blood cells prior to donation day, I had to take a medication called filgrastim via subcutaneous injections for four days. There were some side effects, mostly aches and mild flu-like symptoms.

Considering your own empathy, would you rather have a week of discomfort or a bone marrow disorder? This is a rhetorical question. Staying alive is guaranteed in the former.

I had a lot of thoughts before during and after my donation day.

There are privacy laws that must be followed. So, all I knew was my recipient was a woman in her 60s and she is not living in the USA.

She was diagnosed with a blood disorder. She is old enough to be my mother. And my mother is in great health.

My mother has eight grandchildren. My mother still works — at least until her employer makes her mad again.

We all walk the long road but our 60s is a decade with a lot of life left. Without knowing her, I can imagine she is not interested in parting ways with her family or anything else of the Earth just yet.

Since the donation, I learned that she lives in Germany. She can contact me but the contact is limited. In an age where digital communication reigns supreme, it would be a refresher to meet someone with whom I share DNA who prior to 2019 I never knew existed.

And now we are connected forever. The irony of that statement is that digital communication is what allowed the two of us to know the other existed and that we can help each other. It’s an amazing force of nature out there.

The organization that connected me as a donor is called DKMS. It is a nonprofit that originated in Germany and now operates in six countries, but can help patients in any country.

To help create more lifesavers, I have started my own virtual donor drive. You can become a potential lifesaver or just send a donation to help DKMS find more donors.

Put this link into a browser https://dkmsgetinvolved.org/virtualDrive/ydanesdrive to see my drive, donate and/or swab yourself to try and be a match.

For those wishing to sign up as a virtual donor, DKMS will send you a free swab kit in the mail. You swab the inside of your cheek, place it in the sterile prepaid envelope provided, and send it back. That’s it.

Next month DKMS is celebrating Swabtember. Join in the celebration!

It truly is an experience to save a life. It is a temporary inconvenience for oneself to give another chance at life to another. It doesn’t matter if that person is in the United States, Canada, England, Germany or Portugal.

We all share the same world and the same love. We are separated by oceans. But our humankind is parallel.

There may not be immortality in the world, but it is hard to imagine a world in which we stop helping each other.

People of different cultures have a lot more in common than not. Cheers to you and yours.

Dane Winkler, 39, is systems administrator for the Butler Eagle. He and his wife, Nikki, are the parents of Hannah and Troy.