Before my 19-year-old son di3d, he donated his heart to an 18-year-old girl — after the transplant, her mother handed me a letter from my son that began, “Mom, there’s something you need to know about her.”

And at the end of it he said: “Right. See you, chief.”

The heart.

And then, in the October, when it was clear where he was going, he asked Dr Selvan whether he could say where his heart went.

Directed donation, it is called. It is not ordinary. It requires a known relationship, and approvals, and a great deal of paperwork, and it is refused more often than it is granted.

He had a half-sister, genetically confirmed, on the transplant list for cardiomyopathy, with compatible blood group and body size.

It took four months of forms. He did most of them himself, in bed, with a clipboard, while I was at work.

And it was approved in the January.

I did not know any of this. In the January, my son was dying and doing paperwork, and I thought he was filling in benefits forms, because that is what he told me.