Jessica McLennan, 23, was a nurse, who was giving and kind.

For three days Jess was in hospital, her mother hoping for the best. But on June 4, 2016, Jess died, three days after a car crash at Lilliput.

There was nothing that could be done but Vicki knows if a donated organ could have saved her daughter, she would have taken it without thinking.

So in a haze of pain and grief, she and the family agreed to donate Jess' organs, as per her wishes.

"If I wanted someone to save my child I should want to save someone else's," she said. "Jess was the girl who wanted to fix everyone's problems and save the world.

"She would not want to take her organs to heaven with her."

The decision was easy, Vicki said, but also confronting. Her daughter was dying. The world as she knew it had changed.

And suddenly abstract concepts like organ donation were terribly real.

Vicki said every organ donation was an act of love and compassion for others.

"It's hard because you're so filled with grief, you're still hoping they can save your child," she said.

"At the time it is confronting, but you know you are helping stop the pain of another family and give someone else life.

"That's five other families who wouldn't be kissing their child or their partner or mother or father goodbye."

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Since Jess' death three years ago, Vicki has heard from four of the five people who received a donated organ.

Vicki likes the contact, she wants to hear about the recipients, how they're doing, what they're like.

But grief is complicated.

"It's bittersweet, you're really glad that someone says thank you," she said.

"But then you're devastated because it actually means it's true...because you can live in a world where, sometimes, you just pretend they're on holidays and they're away.

"You get the letter and it's reality but in saying that it also shows little bits of Jess lives on."

Nothing can make the loss of a child bearable, but Vicki said it warms her heart to know Jess is loved by a huge invisible network of strangers, who might not know her name, but know she was kind and giving.

"No one ever wants their child to be forgotten when they pass away, I know I have five people on that day every year that sit there and think about her," she said.

"There are probably hundreds of people now who are grateful to my daughter - grandchildren, great-grandchildren, aunts, sisters, families and friends who still have the person they love...because of Jess.

"She always wanted to change the world and she didn't get to see it but she changed a big part of the world."

Wodonga's Wayne Cook was 14 when he smoked his first cigarette.

It was 1964. There was no plain packaging and it would be two decades before smoking was banned on Australian domestic aeroplanes, even longer for other countries.

Early warnings smoking was dangerous were yet to reach most smokers let alone a 14-year-old boy in Albury.

"In those days it was the same as asbestos - there were no medical reasons for giving up," he said.

By the time he knew better, Wayne was addicted and quitting was easier said than done.

He eventually kicked the habit, but the damage was done... "it was too late."

By the age of 66, Wayne was struggling to breathe.

Two years later, his lung capacity was down to 17 per cent. He needed oxygen 24 hours a day and being active with his grandchildren was out of the question.

"Even walking 30 metres to go to the toilet I'd need two breaks on my way, and then two breaks coming back," he said.

Wayne, a father of three and grandfather of seven, didn't think he had much time left.

He thought his age would hold him back from getting a much-needed lung transplant and knew the chances he'd see his grandchildren grow up were slim.

"Every winter, even with the flu shot, I was getting a bad case of pneumonia and getting hospitalised and every time a little bit of my lung capacity kept on dropping," he said. "One or two more winters would have seen me out."

But in May he got a second chance at life, just days before his 69^th birthday.

"It's a magnificent gift that someone gave me, some family gave me," Wayne said.

"I'm feeling 200 per cent better, like a new person."

Wayne is currently still in Melbourne having just completed physical rehabilitation to rebuild his muscle strength after three years of barely moving.

He hopes to be back on the Border, with his grandchildren.

When he grows up Archer Irwin, now 7, wants to be a stock broker in New York.

Or a doctor in the United Kingdom. He does like his doctors but reckons he could do a better job.

No one is quite sure where his idea of being a stock broker came from, but his mum Nikki doesn't care.

She's just happy she can plan for the future and know Archer will still be around.

"It's amazing how a new liver can create a whole new life," she said. "It still blows my mind that we've got him."

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In the days before his transplant, before they knew that a transplant was coming, Archer was grey and green.

His stomach was swollen, at one point measuring 83cm. His eyes were yellowed and he was done.

They didn't know how long he could hold on. He was defeated, almost catatonic.

"We were so incredibly close to losing him, the doctors were so stressed, there was literally nothing else they could do, we were all just waiting," she said.

But thanks to their 'donor angel', Archer will be heading back to school soon.

As a mother Nikki said, it's hard to express how overwhelmingly happy she feels to see her boy well, for one of the first times in his short life.

She also knows that another mother or sister or daughter lost someone they loved, and feels that deeply.

"They're grieving, whereas everyday is like winning the Tattslotto for us, we're getting a chance at life," she said. "We came close to losing him but they did lose someone..."

But she tries to remind herself the outcome for her 'donor angel' would have been the same, whether their organs were donated or not.

Only Archer's future would have been different.

Nikki, who had been a registered donor herself for 20 years, said she will forever feel in debt to the family and person who allowed her son the chance to grow up.

Archer's donated liver did not just change his life, but gave life to him and everyone around him.

"You truly just want [potential donors] to see what a change one person can make to another family," she said.

"It's not just that person, it's their families and friends and everyone around them that if affects... it's a whole ripple effect of lives changed."

www.donatelife.com.au