As Vicki looked at her son in his hospital bed, she didn’t believe he was close to death. He was still young, at 33. It had been a bad car accident, yes, but he was still strong. To an outsider, the patient must have looked tragic — unconscious and breathing through a ventilator. But to Vicki, he was only sleeping. She was certain, in fact, that he had squeezed her hand.

Later that day, doctors pronounced Vicki’s son brain-dead. And for the next two years, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She felt terribly guilty about the circumstances of his death: He and a friend had been drinking before they got in the car. She knew he was a recovering alcoholic,