People always told me I had a big heart — kind, trusting, full of love. I wore that as a badge of honor. But eventually, that same heart became my biggest problem. It was literally failing, and no doctor wanted to take the risk to fix it.
They said it was too complicated, too dangerous. I was terrified, but maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. My heart had been through a lot — broken by men, abandoned by friends — and most deeply, by my father, who left when I was just two.
My mother raised me alone, sacrificing everything, never speaking badly of him. She even tried to help me forgive him. But I couldn’t.
So when I went to see a specialist she recommended and learned his name — Dr. Smith — I dismissed it as coincidence. Until I saw him. It was him. My father.
He didn’t recognize me, but I refused his care immediately. When he realized who I was, I told him he had no right to call me his daughter.
Angry and hurt, I went to my mother. She admitted she sent me to him — he was the best. But I was stubborn. I walked away.
As my health declined, no other doctor would take my case. Still, I refused to let him treat me. Even Ernie, the man I lived with, showed no support. One night, I was weak and alone when my father showed up at my door.
He begged me to let him help. I resisted, but then everything went black.
I woke up in a hospital, confused. My mother told me I had a heart transplant. A miracle — until she said the donor was him. My father. He had given me his heart, literally.
He died so I could live.
I cried for the man I had hated, the father I never knew — who finally gave me the one thing he never had before: himself.
I ended things with Ernie. Quietly. Finally.
Now, every heartbeat reminds me of the man who gave me a second chance. Not with words — but with the ultimate act of love.
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