Over dinner one night in February 1999, Michelle Peele’s middle daughter Morgan Hasbrouck Perdue got talking about a front page newspaper article on two teens killed in an auto accident. The North Carolina 17-year-old told her family, if she died that way, she would want to be an organ donor.

Two weeks and two days later, on March 5, the high school senior was thrown from her jeep and received a head injury that, with the swelling that followed, left her brain-dead. A second medical opinion concurred.

Her heart went to a middle-aged woman; one kidney, to a young girl. Other people also lived because Morgan had announced her wishes to donate, Peele, now of Alna, told a gathering inside Wiscasset Public Library April 26.

“Had Morgan not communicated that with us, my knee-jerk reaction would have been the reaction, and ... she would not have given life, to so many people.” Peele said knowing her daughter’s wishes was a gift to the recipients and to her, to not have to wonder. It was one of many gifts Morgan and God gave her, she said.

An audience of about two dozen included Ed Peele, Michelle’s husband and Morgan’s stepfather, and Westport Island’s Margie Hodgdon, who lost sister Joanne Russell, 37, last December to a brain aneurysm. Russell’s organs were also donated. Judy Flanagan, opening the talk for its sponsor, Friends of the Library, said she had never known the community to speak as much about a loss as it did Russell’s.

Introducing Peele, Flanagan cited the former Wiscasset woman’s compassion and commitment. Peele recounted the accident, her grief and the realizations she came to on faith, organ donation, the pointlessness of asking “if only,” and the importance of our reaching out to people when they have lost a loved one and well after the loss. She noted at one point: This year, Morgan has been dead longer than she was alive.

The “if only’s”  — if only she hadn’t gotten Morgan the jeep, if only she hadn’t let her go out that night — can’t change anything, Peele said.

Don’t be afraid to bring up someone’s loved one, Peele said. They’re thinking of them and will be glad others still do. She recalled seeing a friend avoid her on a Moore County, North Carolina street.

Morgan worked two to three jobs to support her horse. She was secretary of North Carolina’s National Honor Society and came up with its slogan at the time: teenage seat belt safety. “She’s a seat belt Nazi,” her mother recalled. Morgan and the friends she was driving in her jeep all had their seat belts on before the accident. She unbuckled hers to take off her coat after the heat had been running. As Peele was told, Morgan then reached for the radio at one of the girls’ request and the jeep left the road. She tried to correct, the jeep flipped and she was thrown.

The others were OK physically. Peele got a call from a state highway dispatcher and then a ride in a speeding cruiser to the hospital. She knew from the dispatcher it involved Morgan. Peele said the authorities weren’t answering her questions about what had happened, but she knew it was serious. The officer told her ahead of time when they got to the hospital door, to run.

At the time of the accident, Morgan had been driving 45 mph, Peele said; no speed, drugs, or alcohol were involved. It was a freakish accident, a rogue wave in the placid sea Peele said the family was living on. In the wake were anger, at the cars coming and going as if all was normal when she was waiting at a traffic light on the way to her daughter’s funeral; and despair. She didn’t want to live in a world without Morgan in it.

Shortly after Morgan died, Peele told eldest daughter MacKenzie, 19, she wanted 15 minutes with Morgan. She wanted to ask questions, including did Morgan know how much she loved her. Peele said MacKenzie told her she couldn’t leave her and her youngest sister Meredith, 11, and the answers would come in another way.

The family was moving into a new home the day Morgan died. Unpacking with MacKenzie after the funeral, Peele came across the Mother’s Day card Morgan made her the previous year. Peele held the card over the lectern and read from it at the talk. In it, Morgan thanked her for loving her, and told her she loved her back a whole lot.

Peele and Hodgdon, sharing from the audience, spoke on the Maine and New England organ donor programs. They said someone stays with the loved one, even through the night and, if wanted, a prayer circle is held. The teams that work with the hospitals are amazing, Hodgdon said.

Attendees received pamphlets and “Donate for life” stickers. For information on organ donation, visit DonateLifeNewEngland.org. Peele’s 2000 book, “Glimpses of God,” tells about her experiences that followed her daughter’s death. Sales go to the Friends of the Library for new lights in the used book room. Copies can be bought through the group, at the library at 21 High Street, or from Peele, at michelle.peele52@gmail.com.