Dad Meets 9-Year-Old Who Got His Daughter’s Heart After She Died by Suicide: ‘The Most Bittersweet Thing’

NEED TO KNOW

• Ryan Ainsworth met 9-year-old Penny, who received his late daughter Emma’s heart in a life-saving transplant

• Ainsworth described hearing Emma’s heartbeat in Penny’s chest as an emotional and bittersweet moment of connection

• Penny’s mother said the transplant gave her daughter new energy and was “the biggest gift”

A New Mexico father got the chance to meet the little girl who received the heart of his late daughter.

Ryan Ainsworth — from Portales, New Mexico — remembers the day he took his 15-year-old daughter Emma to register for her driver’s license. While filling out paperwork, he asked if she wanted to be an organ donor.

“She looked back at me with a big smile and said, ‘Yes. I want to do this, Dad,’ ” he told TODAY.

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Unfortunately, three weeks later, Emma died by suicide at her school.

As a donor, four of Emma’s organs were prepared for their recipients. Ainsworth recalled the “sobering” moment when about 700 students and friends lined the hospital hallways and lobby, honoring his daughter’s “Walk of Honor” as she was brought to the operating room.

One of the recipients was 9-year-old Penny from Dallas, Texas.

Penny was born “essentially with half a functioning heart and absent pulmonary valve,” her mother Paula White told the outlet.

“She has a port in her stomach; she’s deaf in one ear. She was born with a myriad of defects that affected her ability to walk,” White continued. “She had two major heart repairs, endless procedures, and then also we almost lost her a couple times before heart failure even began.”

White said that her daughter had been on the transplant list at Children’s Health Hospital in Dallas, and the family was feeling hopeful before getting the news that she had a donor.

“I told her dad six hours prior that I could feel it coming. I got the call around 2 or 3 in the morning and I started screaming at the top of my lungs,” she recalled. “I don’t think I’ll ever have the words to describe what it was like. It was incredible. It was terrifying. But I knew we needed it, and we needed it soon.”

Penny received Emma’s heart on April 1, 2025, in a successful transplant surgery.

Following surgery, the organ donor program allows donor families and recipients to send letters to each other. White ultimately sent Ainsworth a heartfelt message alongside a photo of Penny.

“Because of you and your child, [Penny] now has the energy to chase her dreams again,” she wrote in the letter. “Every beat of her heart is a living reminder of your child’s love and legacy.”

The families continued to correspond with each other and even talked on the phone. Last month, Ainsworth was visiting Fort Worth, Texas, and White invited him to meet her and Penny over dinner.

White posted a video of the sweet interaction on May 27 and shared how stunned she was by Penny’s reaction.

“I’ve shown her his photo, but I never expected her to remember him,” she told TODAY. “We were pulling up into the parking lot, and she sees a man on a bench, and she starts screaming, ‘That’s him!’ She just jumps in his arms like they’ve always known each other.”

“I was happy to see a little girl living because of Emma’s heart,” Ainsworth said. “It was just great when she ran up to me and gave me a hug. It was just like I’d known her forever.”

During their dinner, Penny asked Ainsworth if he’d like to hear his daughter’s heart beating in her chest. Overwhelmed with emotions, he agreed.

“That’s where the emotions got me. I don’t know if it wasn’t one emotion, it was all of them,” he told the outlet. “My stomach turned upside down. At the first ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk, I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ Emma couldn’t have gotten a better recipient than that little girl. She is 100% Emma.”

“I heard that heartbeat and it was just… I mean, it was the most bittersweet thing I could have ever imagined,” he said.

White said that she’s thrilled that Penny’s health has turned around. Although she knows that her daughter’s life will always be at risk, she said she’s simply grateful for the time the transplant has given them.

“There’s a peace that comes with this that I wasn’t expecting to have,” she explained. “But a transplant isn’t a cure. It is the biggest gift of all: it’s more time, and that’s all I could ever ask for.”

The families have remained in touch and have since teamed up to raise awareness for mental health resources in honor of Emma.

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