funeral, a woman I’d never met handed me a sealed envelope in his handwriting. “My daughter received your son’s heart. He asked me to give you this.”
“Her name is Lily,” the woman whispered. “She and your son met in the hospital. Both dying. Your son didn’t donate his heart to a stranger. He chose her.”
Chapter 2: The Girl He Chose
I sat down in the funeral home and read my son’s letter, and I understood that in the last weeks of his short life, he had done the most extraordinary thing, and hidden it from me so I couldn’t stop him from taking care of me after he was gone.
“Mom,” it began. “There’s something you need to know about her. Her name is Lily. I met her in the hospital, on the cardiac floor, the days they had me down there for tests. She’s eighteen. Her
