VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Susan Hanson first heard her son's heartbeat during an ultrasound in 1981.
She heard it again Monday, nearly one year after his death, sustaining the life of another man. It happened at the offices of LifeNet Health in Virginia Beach, which spent months coordinating a meeting between Hanson of Newport News, Va., and Jerry Hayes of Louisburg, N.C. Hayes, 56, received the heart of Jordan Gill, who died in August 2015 from injuries sustained in the crash of his all-terrain vehicle. He was 33 years old. Although his life was cut short, he wasn't done giving life to others. And that has helped Hanson deal with the loss of her son.
In a tearful meeting, Hanson and Hayes embraced while family members and friends looked on.
"How's your heart holding up?" she finally asked. "This is great."
"Yes," Hayes said. "It is."
Moments later, Hanson put on a special stethoscope -- she would be deaf if not for two Cochlear implants -- and snapped her fingers to the beat of Gill's heart.
"Very strong," she said with a smile.
Like her son.
No one saw Gill crash his small ATV in the Denbigh neighborhood he called home. The details are murky. But there was no mistaking the damage from the devastating head injury he suffered.
"One doctor told us later that evening, the man you knew is no longer there," Hanson recalled. "Anything that defines his personality, his decision-making, those portions of the brain are no longer functioning."
Gone was Gill the artisan who owned Gill Custom Tile and Marble and delighted clients with his creativity. (He once made a kitchen backsplash out of pennies.) Gone was Gill the loving son, who built a stair elevator to help his disabled father and who, at the time of his death, was helping his mother through a major kitchen renovation.
Gone was Gill the junk pile junkie, the collector of artifacts, the kid who was sure -- absolutely sure -- he saw the face of Jesus in a reflection when he was a kid.
Gone was Gill, the father of two boys.
But Hanson does not believe her son is gone, not really.
Monday proved as much.
The sense of anticipation was palpable as Hanson and her daughter, Hannah, waited in the conference room for Hayes to arrive. When he did -- bearing a dozen roses -- he and Hanson embraced and cried, as did several others in the room. They had communicated via phone and Facebook, but this was their first face-to-face meeting.
Hanson joked that he looked a lot younger than his photo.
"It must be that young heart you have," she said.
Later, Hayes said he felt like he had gained a new family. Having suffered from heart failure, he's now living comfortably.
"It was very, very exciting," he said. "It was just -- joyful."
However, Gill's legacy does not end with Hayes in North Carolina. His lungs have given life to a man from Kentucky with pulmonary fibrosis, who now enjoys caring for his two grandchildren.
Gill's liver went to a Virginia resident who was given three months to live, survived into the fourth month and got the transplant. Gill's kidneys went to two other individuals: a 60-year-old woman who had been on dialysis for 13 years and a man who was set free from a dialysis machine and can now sleep next to his wife. A cornea went to a woman in Kentucky.
Three bone grafts have been used in Chicago, Washington state and the country of Chile.
Hanson has found these people and uncovered this information as part of a healing journey that continues. Putting her talent in photography and sewing to use, she has created pictorial storyboards that chart Gill's life and the people helped.
She has made blankets and pillows from his clothes.
She speaks without hesitation of his devastating accident and credits her steadfast faith in God for being able to see that her son was part of a larger plan.
Gill was declared brain dead on Sept. 1, 2015, but the real goodbye happened a bit later, when he was about to be rolled into an operating room for the organ donation process to begin.
"I knew, once they went through those doors, that he was going to meet Jesus," she said. And yet, despite her efforts and rock-solid faith, Hanson had to overcome one more hurdle to continue her healing journey and experience her son's heartbeat again.
She can only hear with the help of two cochlear implants. She received the first in 2005 and the second in 2006. Because of that, she can't use a conventional stethoscope. In stepped a company called Cardionics, which makes a specially designed stethoscope for those who have hearing devices. The company donated the stethoscope to LifeNet Health.
LifeNet Health is a nonprofit organization that, for more than 30 years, has provided transplant solutions from organ procurement to newer innovations in bio-implant technologies and cellular therapies.
President and CEO Rony Thomas said it isn't always possible for donor families and recipients to meet. When it is possible, arranging the meetings takes anywhere from six to eight months. It is even more rare for a heart transplant recipient to "share" a heartbeat with a donor's family.
"It is not very common," he said. "This would be my second in my 12 years here. Nothing really prepares us for that. It is raw emotion."
High Profile on 08/14/2016