If teenager Jesse Steel could have met his kidney transplant donor, he wouldn't have said much.
"I would have tears in my eyes and a lump in the back of my throat," he says.
"I would probably just say a big thank you and give a big hug."
The 17-year-old, from Redland Bay in Queensland, was speaking to AAP ahead of DonateLife Thank You Day on Sunday.
"(It's) a day for all Australians to reflect on the gift of organ and tissue donation and to simply say thanks to living and deceased donors and their families," says Rural Health Minister Fiona Nash.
Jesse, who on Friday graduated from high school, was just 13 when diagnosed with kidney failure.
"The only thing we could tell was that my skin colour went a bit grey, I was lethargic and had no energy at all."
His diagnosis led to a hospital stay, then seven months of 12-hour daily sessions of dialysis while on the transplant waiting list.
"I would go on at 7 o'clock at night, get off at 7 o'clock in the morning and then go off to school.
"Being sick really wore me over those months."
Soon after his family was told his treatment wasn't working, the then 14-year-old had to rush to hospital to receive his life-saving kidney transplant.
"It was scary and exciting at the same time.
"After the operation I just felt amazed as I had all this energy I hadn't felt for a year."
But then he started to feel a mixture of happiness and guilt, thinking about the donor and the donor's family.
Since then he's met other transplant recipients, who all agree they can't now take life for granted, and families of donors.
"They say it is one on the saddest things but they also say they are so happy that their son or daughter lives on through somebody else."
In 2013, Jesse gave a speech to his whole school saying why they should and need to become organ donors.
Now he's hoping to get into nursing, after being inspired by those caring for him in the renal ward.
People can register as an organ and tissue donor on the Australian Organ Donor Register at donatelife.gov.au/decide.
