Our daughter will have my heartbeat in a bear. And a little girl named Lily will have my actual heart, beating, giving her parents the future mine was stolen. That’s how I found a way to keep my promise on that porch. Part of me is giving another parent more time with their child. I just made very sure I knew exactly which child, so I could love her a little, before I go, the way I won’t get to love ours.”
Chapter 4: The Family a Heart Connected
I met Lily’s family a few months after our daughter was born.
I hadn’t planned to. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the four-year-old walking around with my husband’s heart, and eventually, through the donor program, I reached out. And Lily’s parents — who had spent those weeks not knowing whose heart had saved their daughter, only that a dying man had directed it to her specifically — fell apart when they understood the whole story. That a man facing his own death, who would never meet his own child, had spent one of his last acts making sure their child would live.
