Heart transplant recipient finds love with donor’s sister

In 2005, 17-year-old Connor Rabinowitz, from Edina, Minnesota, was in need of a new heart. The promising young baseball star had just been diagnosed with a life-threatening genetic disease that enlarged and weakened his organs.

"I had been such a strong, healthy young man who’d never been sick, on the verge of a baseball scholarship to the Division 1 school of my choice and one week later doctors were telling me I could die if I don’t receive a life saving heart transplant," Connor told the West Seattle Herald.

"I would lie in bed at night and pray for a heart to come quickly or I wouldn’t make it. I would think every day and night about the person who would have to die for me to live. I prayed for that family who would be receiving such a different call from that of mine," he said.

That person who would have to die for him was Kellen Roberts, a young man from West Seattle who passed away at the age of 22 when he hit his head during a freak accident.

Roberts' family immediately decided to donate his organs to help others.

"We were so grateful that Kell's organs were able to be donated, and thrilled, as we know Kellen would have been, that he was able to save six lives. It gave us such joy and hope in the middle of our enormous loss," Nancy, Kellen’s mom, recently wrote.

The transplant surgery was a success. During his recovery, Connor wrote to the Roberts family to thank them. A year after the surgery, the families met.

Almost immediately, Connor hit it off with Kellen's younger sister, Erin.

"Instantly, before I even walked up to him, because he hugged my mother first, and we were kind of staring at each other, over my mom's shoulder," Erin told KOMO News.

The families met up annually. By 2011, Connor and Erin starting dating.

Last year, Connor graduated from Argosy University in Eagan as a cardiac ultrasound technician and relocated to Seattle to be with Erin.

"My friends would ask me, ‘Isn’t it weird? Isn’t it like it’s your brother or your cousin?’ But it’s not," Erin Roberts, 32, told the Star-Tribune. "Any weirdness people think of this, I think, is from a limited knowledge of organ transplant."

"[Connor] understands on a level other people can’t. We’re aware of the sacrifice that had to be made," Erin said. "I feel my brother chose him for me...as a last gift."

"I miss my son, but I am clear in my belief that he is happy and understands and smiles at everything that has ensued since he left us," Nancy told the West Seattle Herald. "The world unfolds in ways that I cannot fathom, but I trust and believe in the way things are, and that all things happen for a purpose."

"I thank my son daily for the gifts he gave us when he was here with us in body, and for the continuing gifts he gives us daily. One of those tangible gifts is Connor and his unexpected presence in our daily lives," she added.

"I feel like I talk to him every day, I feel like I hear his voice all the time," Connor said of Kellen. "I just try to live my life the way that he would appreciate and that he would value."

"I just wish he could know how grateful I am for him," he added.