Ah, Valentine’s Day. As we approach that day, we anticipate the giving of flowers, chocolates, fancy dinners, and embraces, all to celebrate love. None of these things are bad; they celebrate the joys of romantic love, which keeps the human race thriving and happy. But when we focus too much on eros (romantic love), we can forget that there are other forms of love as well.

There is storge, the affection we feel for our families, and philia, the fondness we have for our friends. Most importantly, there is agape--unconditional, self-sacrificial love for our neighbors. Pretty much all cultural and religious traditions implicitly use this definition of love when they lay down the Golden Rule: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (in Christian wording).

This year, Valentine’s Day is also Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season commemorated by some Christian denominations. During the 40 days leading up to Easter, we do penance for our sins and return to the Lord and his ways through fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.

The timing of Ash Wednesday coinciding with Valentine’s Day this year is fortuitous because it reminds us that ultimately, real love is a sacrifice.

Think of the rose, a symbol of love we use for this occasion. Part of its beauty lies in its thorns, which can prick the skin and cause pain. But a person who truly loves others will undergo that pain and injury, even to the loss of body and blood, if it is needed for their sake.

Right now, at this very minute, there are 7,500 people in America alone who urgently need a transplant of the cross-link between body and blood: bone marrow. These people have been diagnosed with cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, bone marrow diseases like severe aplastic anemia and Fanconi anemia, inherited metabolic disorders like Krabbe disease and Hurler syndrome, and other blood cell disorders like severe combined immunodeficiency (“bubble boy” syndrome) and sickle cell anemia.

A bone marrow transplant is often their best, and sometimes their only, hope to treat their life-threatening and/or debilitating disease.

Yet for 70% of them, no one in their family is a match, so they must turn to the national registry in the hopes that a perfect stranger is a match for them--and willing to donate.

Unfortunately, many people are not willing to donate because they fear that donation will be unbearably painful, or that it will cost them money. A needle in the spine certainly sounds scary, but it’s not the reality at all. Nowadays, there are 2 ways to donate bone marrow.

Most donors give peripheral blood stem cells, which is a nonsurgical procedure that occurs over about a week. For five days, they are given injections of filgrastim, a drug which moves stem cells out of the bone marrow and into the blood. Then, their blood is drawn out, filtered for stem cells, and returned to them through another needle.

Even for those who are called on to give actual bone marrow, the collection is done from the hip bone (not the spine) while the donor is under anesthesia. Neither procedure is without risk, but long-term side effects are very rare, and no bone marrow donor has ever died from the procedure. Nor is there any financial cost: For those who are called on to donate, Be the Match (the national bone marrow donation program) reimburses medical costs, travel costs, and sometimes other expenses like lost wages.

You won’t receive the honor of saving a patient’s life out of the blue, however. You must first join the Be the Match registry, and even once you do, you may be called in months, years, or not at all.

Of course, there are certain criteria to ensure the safety of both the donor and the patient; you must be between the ages of 18 and 60, not extremely under- or overweight, and in reasonably good health (a list of all the medical criteria can be found here). Donors under 44 and those of diverse ethnic backgrounds are especially needed.

Regardless of whether you can or cannot join, financial contributions are always needed to cover the operational costs of the bone marrow donation program. But if you can join, then you should. All it takes is a 10-minute online form, a cheek swab, and a willingness to donate if called upon. Sometimes there are many matches, but you could be the only person who can save a particular patient’s life. Is not saving a life the greatest act of true love?

Patients--adults and small children--need you. I am willing to give. Are you?