At a Día de los Muertos gathering in Salt Lake City, organ donor families and transplant recipients came together, including Cindy Bryant and David Shaw, who met for the first time. FOX 13 Salt Lake City reported that Bryant’s son William, a former Marine just days from his 26th birthday, died after a catastrophic brain hemorrhage struck him at work. Through organ donation, he saved multiple lives, including Shaw’s after Shaw suffered a heart attack.
The meeting happened at a celebration where families gathered at the Memorial House at Memory Grove, according to FOX 13 Salt Lake City. Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is traditionally a time to remember and celebrate loved ones who have died, and for this crowd of organ donor families and recipients, the holiday carried an especially powerful meaning. The gathering wove together traditional music, Indigenous Aztec dancing and the creation of ofrendas — the colorful offerings that honor the lives and memories of those who are gone.
For Bryant, meeting Shaw in person connected her with one of the lives her son’s donation touched. Shaw, who relied on a left ventricular assist device for two and a half years before his transplant, told FOX 13 he is now healthy and enjoying life with his family, and grateful for his second chance.
A Mother's Hope for the Heart She Gave Away
Bryant's family said they hope Shaw stays healthy, enjoys life and makes memories with his own family — a wish born directly from the loss of her son. The celebration, organizers said, reminded attendees that their loved ones' memories, traditions and legacies live on, even after death.
Diana Miron Valadez, an aftercare coordinator with DonorConnect, works closely with families who have lost loved ones who became organ donors. She said the Mexican tradition helps keep those memories alive, and described how the ofrendas take shape: families place photos of their loved ones alongside mementos and items the person enjoyed in life, the outlet reported in a companion piece on the event. One family, remembering a woman named Jadyra, said they chose organ donation because they believed it was what she would have wanted.
A Tradition That Has Spread Beyond Utah
Salt Lake City is not the only city where Día de los Muertos has become a moment to honor donors. A year earlier, the Texas Organ Sharing Alliance held its own Ofrendas y Recuerdos event in San Antonio, where, according to KSAT, a Donor Memorial Garden altar featured photos of more than 110 organ donors and families placed marigold flowers on their loved ones' medals along the Wall of Heroes. DonorConnect itself has marked similar milestones before: in 2022, the organization gathered donor families at the Celebration of Life Monument near the Salt Lake City Library, where, as reported by KSL.com, one donor named Del Hillary had given 10 different organs, helping save the lives of multiple people.
These remembrances take place amid continuing national need. At a 2022 Salt Lake City event, DonorConnect’s McPherson said more than 100,000 people nationwide were waiting for a transplant, according to KSL.com. That was the figure cited at the time of that event.
A National Snapshot of Transplants
According to the OPTN/SRTR Annual Data Report, more than 45,000 transplants were performed in the United States in 2024. That figure measures completed transplants; it does not, by itself, provide a current waiting-list total or a Utah-specific donation count.
For families like Bryant's, the statistics are secondary to the personal thread that now connects two households who had never met before this year's gathering at Memory Grove. William's heart beats on in David Shaw's chest, and for one afternoon surrounded by marigolds, music and ofrendas, that fact brought two families together to grieve, remember and, in a quiet way, celebrate.
