The heart of a hero is no longer beating.

In July 2009, Judy Meikle, at age 57 and of Winnetka, Ill., received the heart of Benjamin Kopp, a 21-year-old Army Ranger corporal from Rosemount who died eight days after being shot during a combat operation in southern Afghanistan.

On March 10, Meikle died of colon cancer in Naples, Fla., shortly after learning she had the disease, Kopp’s mother, Jill Stephenson, said Friday. Meikle, who was 72, requested no obituary or service and had no surviving family.“I cried harder than I’ve cried in years,” she said. “It felt like Ben died all over again.”

Through tears and prayers, she had a vision of her son greeting Meikle and the two of them “finally meeting after 15 years and seven months,” she said.

Meikle’s close friend gave Stephenson the news of her death, something she figured she’d get someday. But it hit her and others harder than she imagined.

“This is another layer of grief that I didn’t see coming,” she said.

Stephenson and Meikle shared a special bond and they kept in touch as much as they could, despite living in separate states. Stephenson sold her Rosemount house in 2015 and now lives in Oklahoma, near Tulsa. Meikle had split her time between homes in Naples and Evanston, Ill.

“She was very charismatic,” Stephenson said, “and quick to share with anyone that she had a strong Ranger heart.”

In her continued grief over her son’s death, she said, “I still had this joy in my heart that Ben was still living in her. And, you know, there’s something very special about the heart continuing on. And so then to learn that his heart was no longer beating really changes the narrative of the story.”

A new kind of heroism

That story began while Kopp grew up in Rosemount knowing the importance of organ donation.

In 1982, six years before he was born, his uncle, Stephenson’s brother, J.T. Burud, was hit by a car while trying to cross Minnesota 100 in St. Louis Park. He was 11 years old. Ten days later, the boy’s family, in learning that he was brain dead, removed him from life support and donated his kidneys.

Nearly 27 years later — July 10, 2009 — Kopp’s Ranger unit attacked a Taliban safe haven and was involved in a firefight that lasted hours, killing several Taliban. Kopp saved six of his fellow Rangers but was shot behind the knee. He underwent surgery to remove the bullet and repair the damage, but subsequently never woke up. After being informed that he was brain dead, Jill had to make the difficult decision to remove him from life support. He died at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington D.C, eight days after being shot.

But his passing opened the door for a new kind of heroism.

Two days later, his heart was implanted into Meikle, who was dying of a congenital heart defect and was on the transplant waiting list. Meikle also happened to be a friend of Stephenson’s first cousin, who lived in the Chicago area.

In death, Kopp saved or enhanced the lives of more than 60 people by donating bone, skin, tissue and all of his organs.

He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Valor, Meritorious Service Medal and Purple Heart and buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., with full military honors.

Special connections

Stephenson and Meikle met in person for the first time in September 2009 during the Organ Procurement Association’s annual meeting in Dallas.

To mark the one-year anniversary of her son’s death, Stephenson organized a celebration at the Rosemount American Legion to honor her son and his gift to Meikle. It was the first time Meikle had met many members of Kopp’s family, including his father and great-grandmother, and several of his friends.

Meikle said at the time she felt great and joked her 22-year-old heart is making her more active.

“I get up every day and the Army Ranger in me wants to get out and do something active, like get out and run,” she told the Pioneer Press.

Meikle returned to Rosemount the following summer for the first Ben Kopp Memorial Motorcycle Ride. The event went on to be held annually for the next 11 years, raising nearly $300,000 for veterans.

Stephenson keeps in contact with two other donor recipients, both of whom live in the D.C. area. Curtis Brantley was a 31-year-old father when he received Kopp’s liver. Davaun Mason was 15 when he received Kopp’s kidney.

“They’re both doing well,” she said. “I just chatted with Davaun’s mom not that long ago, and she said he’s doing well.”

Another kidney recipient, Fred Thurston, also of the D.C. area, was 60 at the time and died eight months later from an unrelated health issue.

“I am still in contact with his widow, and his son,” Stephenson said. “In fact, I heard from both of them when I shared the news on Facebook that Judy had died. They both sent me messages.”

‘It has hit people really hard’

Meikle was not shy about allowing people to feel Kopp’s heart and “readily expressed her deep gratitude for Ben’s generosity in being her donor,” Stephenson said in her Facebook post.

“It has hit people really hard,” she said Friday. “Many have said, ‘I feel like we just lost him all over again.’ And that’s how I feel, too.”

Joe Benfante is among them. He grew up with Kopp in Rosemount and they graduated high school together in 2006. Kopp enlisted in the Army in the fall of his senior year and left for basic training one month after he graduated.

“I felt like a wound ripped open again,” he said of Judy’s death. “There’s other organs out there, but that was the one that was the actual connection where Jill basically handpicked who was going to get it, which is a crazy story in itself of how that all happened.”

Benfante had met Meikle a handful of times, the first being at one of the motorcycle rides.

“She surprised Jill at the one ride, so no one knew about it,” he said. “I found out through the grapevine. And so when she showed up, I got to feel their heart.”

Benfante lives in Farmington with his wife and their three sons. The oldest boy, who is 6, is named Benjamin, after Kopp. “It’s my way of keeping Ben’s memory alive,” he said.

In her Facebook post, Stephenson shared one of her son’s favorite quotes, by Stephen Vincent Benet: “Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dying day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.”