Family Hears Departed Loved One's Heart Beat Again

Maureen C. Gilmer

INDIANAPOLIS, IN -- Donna Harper sabbatum in the parking lot at St. Richard's Episcopal School on Saturday morning almost paralyzed with fearfulness. She was about to get within that school and run across the woman who lives today because Harper's son died.

Lucy Boenitz was within the schoolhouse, dealing with collywobbles of her own. For 11 years, she has carried something dear within of her, the heart of a man named Matthew Boylen, who died at 22 in an machine accident in Ohio.

In the Bible, Matthew literally means "gift from God." Boenitz, fifty, received Matthew's precious gift, his final gift, equally she lay near death — her own center weakened by a virus years earlier. The transplant took identify at IU Wellness Methodist Hospital on Aug. 17, 2006

Now, the 2 women and their extended families would meet for the commencement time in the library at St. Richard's, where Boenitz works equally a first-class didactics assistant.

With her daughters and husband by her side, Harper found the strength to step through the doors, joining a room full of family members who had traveled from Caldwell, Ohio, in the southeastern part of the land.

When Boenitz entered the crowded room, it seemed for a moment it was merely the two women and Matthew in this infinite. The extended hug, the sobs, then the smiles spoke to the emotional journey both accept been on for more than a decade.

"Do y'all desire to hear his heart," Boenitz asked through tears. "It'south probably going a million miles an hour."

As Harper listened through a stethoscope, the sniffles and sobs in the room threatened to drown out the sound of her youngest son's heart, just she knew i thing: Information technology was stiff and good for you. And, non surprisingly, beating just a little fast, she said.

Next up was Kelsey Pearson, who would hear her begetter'due south heart for the offset fourth dimension since she was a toddler and savage asleep lying on his chest.

"Take all the time you lot need," Boenitz told the 12-year-old. "He's still correct here."

The young daughter couldn't hold back the tears, and neither could anyone else in the room.

The line continued with Matthew'southward sisters, Mindy Callihan and Jamie Harriman; his longtime girlfriend, Maggie Pearson; and a host of nieces and nephews.

In all, about fifteen family members made the trip from Ohio, including 2 great-nephews Matthew never met. The youngest, Jackson, is 7 months old.

Equally the group sat down to await through photos of Matthew playing baseball, showing hogs in 4-H, wearing his love cowboy boots and trying out his firefighter gear, the stories, "happy tears" and laughter flowed hands effectually the tabular array.

Donna Harper was particularly close to her youngest child. They went through fire training together, serving as volunteer firefighters in their Ohio community. When Harper'due south first husband — Matthew's dad — died in a logging accident in 2002, Matthew was at that place for her. When she was diagnosed with a brain tumor vi months later, Matthew was there.

So when he died Aug. 16, 2006, her world barbarous apart. It would have a long fourth dimension before she felt strong enough to encounter this Indiana family — Lucy Boenitz and her husband, Tom; Lucy'south son Sam (some other son, William, could not be there); and her sister, Ann Smith and husband Steve from Bloomington. This wasn't the whole family, but it was enough for today.

"He would have wanted his eye to go to someone who loved their family unit, who made a difference in the world," Harriman said of her brother. "That'due south why we've been able to come to terms. We're all organ donors now."

Boenitz, who lost a kid of her ain to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome 22 years ago, knows she received a special gift in Matthew'southward heart.

"When I tell people about Matthew, I'g just so proud of him and he isn't my child. Had he not even given me a heart, I'thousand just so proud of him. He was doing all the right things."

Anybody there who remembers Matthew remembers his skillful heart.

"A loving, caring male child," his mom said.

"He was amazing, he was pretty much the perfect guy," said Maggie Pearson. "He was e'er willing to assist everybody."

Boenitz and her family wrote messages to Matthew's family through the Organ Procurement Transplant Network on that showtime Thanksgiving later on his death.

"We wanted to limited to you how we were thinking of you," Boenitz' sis told Harper. "How do you always say give thanks you for something similar this? My sister and I decided that yous live well and you carry the treasure the all-time you can. We wanted to give you lot that promise."

The Indianapolis woman received her own letter of the alphabet from Harper about a yr afterward the transplant.

"She told me who Matthew was, what he had done, how he had died and the honey and pride that this family unit has ... was only immense."

They corresponded through letters and Facebook over the years, but information technology was too painful to meet, until at present.

"I'm glad nosotros waited," Boenitz said. "I'm glad that we gave ourselves time to heal."

As she held her hand to her heart, she said, "This is the one part of her kid that is still here. It's tangible and it'south here and it'southward here for them."

Her son's heart definitely lives on in the right person, Harper said. "He would be proud."

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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/humankind/2017/09/29/family-hears-departed-loved-ones-heart-beat-again/715726001/