Heart transplant connects two strangers

Looking at these two, you would think they are family. The pair refers to one another like that.

“This young man is my son, my son,” Charmaigne Law said.

But for most of their lives, they were strangers who did not even live in the same country. It took Jose Famania nearly dying and Law losing her daughter to bring the two together.

Sixteen years ago, at age 21, Famania was on his last leg at a Massachusetts hospital.

“I thought I was going to die,” Famania said.

Three months in the intensive care unit, after a severe stomach virus spread through his body, Famania got the news that doctors found a match for a heart transplant that would save his life.

“it was a blessing and a miracle that they found a blood type,” Famania said.

Twenty-year-old Chardre Yawana died on New Years Day after a crash near her home in Bermuda. Famania would get her heart hours later.

But it took 11 years before Law could bring herself to reach out to Famania.

“We were speaking over the phone for hours,” Law said. “It felt like I had known him for 100 years.”

That connection would only grow stronger when, months later, they decided to meet in person.

“To meet face to face and put my hand and face on his chest and hear his heartbeat,” Law said, “I said wow, she lives on.”

The heart beating inside Famania’s chest allows Law to keep a piece of her daughter on this earth forever.

“That heart is still beating ooo,” Law said. “It’s a miracle.”

A tragedy turned miracle. And now, for the first time, the pair is spending Christmas together at Famania’s home in Bonita Springs.

“I know they had a loss, but if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t be alive,” Famania said.

“It makes everything worthwhile,” Law said. “Him receiving the heart — it couldn’t have happened to a better person.”