"That's my heart," she said. "It's still beating for me."
Although she had just met Mr. Lourenco, she had known his heart for a long time. It had belonged to her husband, Julio, who died from a brain hemorrhage in March 2010, at the age of 38. Mrs. Garcia donated her husband's organs, and the family's loss led to a second chance for Mr. Lourenco, 57.
But he was not the only one. Seven or eight other people who urgently needed transplants also received organs from Mr. Garcia, an unusually large number. (The average from organ donors is about three.) Even more unusual, his family and a group of recipients met on Wednesday in a highly emotional gathering at the Manhattan headquarters of the New York Organ Donor Network, which coordinated the transplants.
The story of the Garcias and the people whose lives were saved by one man's donated organs provides a close look at the charged world of transplants and organ donation, where people on the transplant list know they may die waiting, and the families of brain-dead patients are asked, at perhaps the most painful time in their lives, to look beyond their own grief and allow a loved one's organs to be removed to help strangers.
There are nowhere near enough donor organs for all the people who need transplants. Nearly 111,000 are on waiting lists in the United States, but last year, only 28,663 transplants were performed, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the transplant system nationwide. This year, 6,000 to 7,000 people are expected to die waiting.
Last week, Mrs. Garcia and her children, 5, 11 and 18, who all live in Stamford, Conn., met four of the recipients of her husband's organs for the first time. A fifth recipient also attended, one of two people with renal failure, both members of the Garcias' church, whom Mrs. Garcia chose to receive kidneys.
Mrs. Garcia addressed a room packed with recipients, families, doctors, nurses, her minister and his family and network employees. She spoke briefly through an interpreter. She said her husband had had a big heart and would be very proud "to give life after death." No one would ever forget him, she said.
Elaine R. Berg, president of the donor network, said: "These meetings don't happen that frequently. I've been here 11 years, and if it's once a year that's a lot. I've never met five recipients from one donor. It's highly unusual."
In many cases recipients or donor families, or both, choose to remain anonymous, Ms. Berg said. Recipients may send thank-you letters through the network, but they and donors do not often choose to meet.
"It's pretty intimidating and pretty emotional," Ms. Berg said. "Some people cannot bear it."
But she said that meeting the recipients can bring solace to donor families.
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