Mother hears heart of dead son beating in another person’s chest
WHEN Vicki Brannon met Jennifer Lentini for the first time, she leant in and put her ear to Jennifer’s chest. What she heard changed several lives forever.
A MOTHER has heard the heart of her dead son beating inside the chest of another person in an extraordinary meeting.
Jennifer Lentini, 31, who received a heart transplant 18 years ago, met the donor’s mother, Vicki Brannon, for the first time at a New York airport on Saturday, the New York Daily News reports.
Ms Brannon’s son, Matthew McIntyre, was killed in 1996 when a friend accidentally shot him in the neck with a handgun, which he had retrieved from an unlocked cabinet.
She made the choice to donate Matthew’s organs and Ms Lentini, who suffered from heart muscle disease, received the heart the next day at age 13.
During their tearful first meeting at Tampa International Airport, Ms Brannon held her ear to Ms Lentini’s chest and listened.
“My Matthew is in there,” Ms Brannon told the Daily News.
“Matthew was such a good boy. The Lord took him, he had his reasons, but she was supposed to get his heart … I feel like I gained a daughter.”
Ms Lentini, who tracked down Ms Brannon through Facebook, told her that she would keep herself healthy in Matthew’s honour.
“I exercise, I try to eat right, do everything I can to keep it beating,” she said.
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