Transplantees Find Catharsis in Holding Their Old Hearts
Kamisha Hendrix’s heart lay on the table between us. Seventy days ago, this heart had been beating inside of her, back behind the dark scar that plunged into the neckline of her blouse.
“No—my heart didn’t beat,” Hendrix clarified. “It trembled.”
The chemo used to treat her non-Hodgkin's lymphoma had damaged her cardiac muscle irreparably, reducing its strength to 15 percent. She regularly lapsed in and out of consciousness. “I felt like I was moving through mud,” she recalled.
Hendrix looked at the heart on the table, the organ she had carried for 44 years, and spoke in its imaginary voice. “You wanna live?” She gave the heart a whimpering intonation. “Okay, I'll give you another beat.”
She switched back to her own voice, “Thank you, heart. Thanks a lot, friend.”
Three months ago, Hendrix’s mother, Carolyn Woods, had already written her obituary and tucked it away in a drawer. The theme, Woods explained, was . “It was about everyone coming to pay their last respects—and the people are the bell. All that crying and wailing would
