A REMARKABLE six people have benefited from organs generously donated after Kerry Vella's sudden death.

Son Dominic says it is what she would have wanted as she was a selfless person who cared for her own mother for years.

Kerry's unexpected death from a brain aneurysm has left her family bereft and questioning the cruelty of her losing her own life just as she was hoping to have had a little more time for herself.

Her organ donation will not ease their pain or sense of bitter loss but, in time, perhaps it will be a comfort knowing that she lives on in some small way in six other people.

Her story comes as the country prepares to change from an opt-in donor system to an opt-out one.

From next Spring, all adults will be assumed to be a donor after they die unless they have indicated otherwise.

There must, of course, be rigorous checks to ensure that this new system does not remove personal choice from individuals and their families, but the hope is that it will ensure gifts like Kerry's will become the norm rather than the exception.