IN July 2015, nursing student Carmen Mark, 18, from Penang suffered an arterial rupture in the brain while studying in Singapore.

The rare condition – arteriovenous malformation (AVM), an abnormal tangle of thin-walled blood vessels in the brain – sent her into a three-week coma. She then suffered a seizure that ended all hope of recovery.

Remembering her great desire to help others while her life was sustained by a life-support machine, her father, Mark Kok Wah, accepted that he had lost his only child. He decided to honour her dream by donating her organs.

Carmen’s organs, including the heart, benefited eight Singaporeans, he said, and on Friday, he would hear his girl’s beating heart for the first time since losing her.

Fulfilling a father’s wish

Kok Wah, 46, a specialist contractor, said he always knew that one day, the recipient of Carmen’s heart would contact him and his wife, Ariess Tan, 43.

The recipient, Serene Lee, 37, knew where the heart beating inside her had come from, he said, as he recounted how he decided to donate his daughter’s organs and how Lee found out.

“Carmen wanted to help people, to save lives. So, she decided on nursing. She quietly applied for a scholarship from Singapore’s National Heart Centre and got it.

“I had wanted her to pursue law, finance or other fields. She was adamant about nursing, even after I tried to scare her with stories of nasty patients and how tough the work could get. She said as an accountant, she would not be saving people.

“She was that kind of person, always wanting to help others. Carmen wanted to be an organ donor.”

Kok Wah knew the decision would be objected by his family, including his mother, who was very fond of Carmen, her first grandchild. She pushed them to pray for a miracle.

He said until today, his mother could not let it go – asking him just last week why he did not try to save Carmen.

Organ donation is also a taboo for many Asian families, namely the more conservative, because they believe the deceased must proceed to the afterlife whole.

Knowing that he would not be able to handle the family’s questioning while mourning his child, Kok Wah gave an interview to Singapore’s The Straits Times newspaper to explain his decision.

“With the story out, I could just tell people who questioned me to read the article. I didn’t want to have to explain myself repeatedly.

“It turned out that Serene (Lee) also read the article after she woke up from the heart transplant. Her husband had shown her the article, which revealed to her where her new heart came from – information she would not have known otherwise.”

From then on, Lee has been following Kok Wah’s Facebook posts, which featured many photos of Carmen, stories of organ donations, and his charity work with children’s homes in Penang.

Two posts on how organ recipients elsewhere in the world met the families of their donors deeply affected Lee.

“In the two postings, I also expressed my desire to hear my child’s beating heart again,” Kok Wah said, adding that he did not know Lee had been reading his posts.

“After the second post early last month, which was about a father cycling 1,400 miles to hear his late daughter’s beating heart, Lee reached out to me in a private message on Facebook.

“When I got the message, I was up in the attic, my office at home. I cried. She said I don’t have to cycle 1,400 miles. She would come and see us.”

Tan, Carmen’s financial consultant mother, was also reduced to tears after reading Lee’s long message.

“Both of us have cried a lot since Carmen’s passing. We still do, except at work. The three of us were a unit. We were very close,” Kok Wah said.

Since their first contact via Facebook, Kok Wah, Tan and Lee had set up a WhatsApp chat group to stay in touch by texting each other. The couple used to have one with Carmen.

They never communicated via video chat, Tan said, but several close friends of Carmen have done that with Lee, who was interested to see them.

Not knowing how they would react when they meet Lee for the first time on Friday, the couple have asked Carmen’s godmother to collect Lee at the airport and take her for a char koay teow lunch.

“We thought it would be better for us not to take her. We might spoil the char koay teow, make it too salty with tears,” Kok Wah said.

Organ donation mission

After the meal, Lee is to meet Kok Wah and Tan at Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s office in Komtar at 3pm, where the couple will hear Carmen’s heart.

The session will be covered by the local and Singapore media as well as a film crew producing a documentary on Carmen’s story.

Kok Wah said he needed a platform to advocate organ donation as a means of saving lives, just like what Carmen had done for Lee – a mother of three aged between seven and 17 – and others who had received the lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas.

He said he and his wife have been advocating it since their child died and they wanted to spread the message on saving lives to a wider audience to generate awareness on the importance of organ donation.

“A few months ago, a Penang teen was declared braindead. I managed to contact the boy’s aunt to encourage the family to consider organ donation, which could have saved some lives.

“I was told the boy’s mother was too distraught to make a decision. Then the boy died.”

He said people needed to understand that organ donations were not the harvesting of organs from the deceased but from people who are still alive or those clinically dead with consent.

“I asked Serene if she would be willing to join us on this advocacy campaign and she has agreed. She will also address the media with us on Friday.

“Imagine what would have happened to Serene and her kids if Carmen’s heart was not donated? Today, Serene can watch her kids grow. The woman who received Carmen’s kidney no longer needs dialysis.”

Lee previously suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease that causes the heart to weaken and unable to pump blood efficiently. It often leads to heart failure. Lee was kept alive by a mechanical heart.

“A part of my child still lives. Her heart is inside Serene, so in that way she is not totally gone.

“If her organs were not donated, we won’t be hearing her heart any more, and people won’t know and remember Carmen,” Kok Wah said.

In the first year of her death, Kok Wah and Tan received thank you cards from Lee and the recipients of Carmen’s lungs and kidney. The three cards, signed without the recipients being named, were sent through Singapore’s National Organ Transplant Unit.

“The messages on the cards moved us to tears. If after this, the other recipients find us and say they want to meet, we will receive them well like how we will receive Serene.

“If not, we are still happy to know that Carmen had helped them and they are living healthy and well,” said Kok Wah, who has also pledged to donate his organs.

He said Lee will stay with them at the Taman Hutchings home, sleeping in Carmen’s old room.

She will also join them on their visits to charity homes in Penang, and get to know Carmen and how she was brought up.

“Her character is rather similar with Carmen’s,” Kok Wah said of his teenage daughter who had tagged along with him on his charity activities.

A foundation in Carmen’s name

As the Mark family are active in charity work, Kok Wah is planning to set up a foundation in his late daughter’s name.

He plans to have a film made to tell Carmen’s story and channel the proceeds into the foundation. He said he was engaging a filming crew for the project.

“The foundation can help people who need medical aid, orphanages and charity homes,” he said, adding that he wanted the foundation to be sustainable.

The Carmen Mark Foundation is still an idea, but Kok Wah and his wife have already planned to leave their money there after they are gone.

Kok Wah said his share of his company would also go to the foundation when he dies.

“We have no other kids. When we are gone, that’s it. We can’t take our money with us, so we will leave it with the foundation.”

Serene Lee’s message to Mark (unedited):

Dear Mr Mark,

Firstly I am sorry that I had been looking at your Facebook posts since Aug 2015. And twice you posted that you wish to hear your daugher’ s heart beat.

How much I wanted to tell you here I am you don’t have to cycle 14000 miles just to do it! I will fly over to Peneng to let you hear.

Yes I am Serene the heart recipient from Carmen your daughter. Since Aug 2015 I had been looking at your Facebook posts. It made me cry to see how much you miss her. I think partly bec of all organ I took her heart!!

And so it was really emotional for me. I even promise this heart that i will bring her home every year. Which I did in 2016 and I finally had the peace.

However you posted twice on wanting to hear Carmen heart beat and I really can’t take it any longer. I had no peace until I told myself I needed to contact you.

As you know Singapore is very conservative. I am not allowed to contact you. But I decided to do it! 2 years have passed and it’s really tugging in this heart of your daughter. I don’t know how to express but am very sure she misses you. If not why I had no peace until I step into peneng last year. I even went to komtar bec you posted on fb that you had a job there.

Now the ball is in your side. If you are willing and ready to see me and hear her heart beat I will fly over this Sep 15th till 17th. Friday to Sunday and you decide which day you see me.

I will bring a stethoscope to let you hear. If you are willing I would like to also say my thanks to her.

I had been walking the National Heart Center wards way before I had a heart transplant. I am in charged of the patients support group for heart failure patients at NHCS.

So I promise you. I will live on Carmen’s legacy to walk the hospital wards until this heart stops. To be an inspiration to other patients for as long as this heart beats.

If you are in doubt just add me as friends on fb. See my posts since July 29th 2015. Hope to hear from you soon.

From Carmen heart recipient. – September 13, 2017.