ATLANTA — Legos had always been at the top of Grant Martin’s Christmas list.

Even though the 24-year-old never got to make a list this year, his parents are certain a Lego set would have been on it.

This Christmas, Amy and Phil Martin only got to wrap presents for one of their sons. And they will only get to gaze at Grant through a picture from 19 years ago, preserved on an ornament that is hanging on the tree near the kitchen in their Hamilton home.

It was November 2023 when Grant’s heart started giving out. He was born with congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries, which means his ventricles and arteries were reversed. But until then, his parents said he was able to do everything a normal kid could do.

He was hospitalized at Emory University on April 18 to wait for a new heart to become available. After his transplant in June, he spent about the next month in the ICU.

He never returned home.

“He 100% expected to walk away from the hospital alive, and so did we,” said Phil, while sitting next to Amy on a couch in their living room, about his son’s July 20 death. “I prayed and prayed and prayed we would not have to take him off life support, and it just didn’t happen.”

Life with chronic illness

When Grant was 5 years old, he had heart surgery for his condition. Phil said they implanted a pacemaker and Grant was put on blood thinners. It was around late high school or early college when Grant’s doctors started talking to him about undergoing a heart transplant.

During a visit to Emory Hospital late last year, Phil and Amy said their cardiologist explained that the bottom of Grant’s heart was doing a rocking motion instead of squeezing. Then Grant got sick around Thanksgiving.

“We started noticing he would get up in the morning and his eyes were super puffy. And then he started retaining weight,” Phil said. A sign of heart failure is the retention of fluid in the legs and other parts of the body.

Grant was hospitalized full time in April, which started a series of rotations of either Amy, Phil, his younger brother Connor or his grandparents staying with him. During a May interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Grant said he spent his time watching movies, reading, walking around the hospital and chatting with his friends while he waited for a new heart.

Aside from Grant’s close circle, most people didn’t even know he had health issues.

“His friends knew that he had a heart condition, but he never complained to them because he didn’t want people to feel sorry. He didn’t want to be different,” Amy explained.

‘He was born to teach’

It was near the end of Grant’s final semester at Columbus State University, where his parents had also attended, when he became hospitalized. He forfeited his degree to focus on his health but promised to return after his transplant. On May 25, the university awarded him his degree.

He had been studying to become a middle or high school English teacher. In May, he told the AJC he hoped to pick up substitute teaching shifts by fall 2025 and then teach full time.

Erinn Bentley, who was Grant’s mentor and the program coordinator of English education, said he was teaching at Northside High School during his final semester as part of the degree. She described him as “a natural born teacher” and an observant student who frequently asked thought-provoking questions and shared witty jokes with a deadpan face.

“I always think, ‘I can’t wait to see my students grow beyond what they do at CSU,’ because a lot of the teachers in the district now were my students,” Bentley said. “Grant has made me realize that every semester, every week, every month, I should look forward to seeing that growth and change now, because we just don’t know what might happen or might not happen in the future.”

Grant’s parents, who met in high school and are teachers at Calvary Christian and Blanchard Elementary, are now working to set up a scholarship for students involved with the Baptist Collegiate Ministry, a Christian organization at Columbus State with which Grant held leadership positions from 2020 to 2023.

‘I never got to actually talk to him again’

Grant already had a list of priorities upon returning home after his transplant. He told the AJC he expected to be in the hospital a few weeks after surgery to recover, then he would return to Emory Hospital for checkups and finally recuperate at home for a few months.

“First thing I’m going to do is get a real shower. But probably find some time to spend with friends. And there’s pretty tight sodium and fluid restrictions here, so definitely have some of my grandma’s good cooking,” Grant said during a phone interview the day he graduated.

On June 13, Grant went into surgery for his new heart.

“He had been in the hospital for so long, and when a heart finally became available, he was so excited,” Phil said. “He wound up having it the Thursday before Father’s Day. And I was hoping that by that Father’s Day he would be off the ventilator, and we could talk. He never came off the ventilator. So I never got to actually talk to him again.”

Until his death on July 20, Grant never left the ICU. The right side of the new heart did not work properly with his lungs, and as they waited and hoped for his lungs to adjust, Grant developed pneumonia, sepsis, a fungus and a bacteria, his parents said.

There were moments when he was lucid after surgery. Amy said July 4 was the last day Grant was still able to respond and it was the last day she heard her son laugh.

“It was just hard. Just seeing him laying there and suffering, you know. After a while, you don’t want him to suffer anymore,” Amy said with tears flooding her eyes.

Christmas traditions that were just starting

Before Grant and his girlfriend Grace started dating about two years ago, everyone already knew they were together, Phil explained with a laugh. The two met at Columbus State and had been inseparable. They would build Legos and watch action movies together.

The couple had plans to go to Walt Disney World around Christmastime and return home by the holiday. Grant had been looking at engagement rings, and Phil suspects his son would have popped the question during that vacation.

Last Christmas, Grace and Grant drove around Hamilton, a small city about 30 miles north of Columbus, and the surrounding area to admire the decorations and bright lights. In an audio message Grace recorded for Grant while he was in the hospital on the ventilator, she expressed how excited she was to explore Hamilton with him again and enjoy the Christmas lights.

“Godzilla Minus One” also came out last Christmas and Phil said they all went to see it as a family. Grant and Phil, both movie buffs and action film fans, went to watch it twice more, including the black-and-white version that was released in January. The digital version was out in June, and it was the last movie they watched together in the hospital.

Grant’s bedroom is now a movie room filled with his action movie posters. One way Amy said she is keeping her son’s memory alive is by putting up a tree in the room and decorating it with every Star Wars ornament Grant had ever received.

“We put a Christmas tree back there in the the media room — a Star Wars Christmas tree — because one of the traditions is usually every Christmas he would get at least one Star Wars ornament,” Amy said.

Also displayed and stored away in his room and in an adjacent office are Grant’s massive collection of built and unbuilt Legos, 1950s records and second-hand clothing bought from Goodwill. And sarcastically nailed to a wall in Phil’s office is a plaque of one of Grant’s old pacemakers, stating, “Proof that Grant Martin has a heart,” a nod to Iron Man.

Suddenly empty nester

Neither Grant nor his parents and brother had thought they would have to plan a funeral. They knew losing Grant was always a possibility, and Phil said it was “becoming more of a probability” as he worsened after surgery. So, when Grant died, they had to work quickly to give him a funeral he would enjoy.

That meant incorporating Legos and Stars Wars into the July 27 service.

Instead of buying flowers to go on top of Grant’s casket, his girlfriend built a Lego Orchid, his favorite flower. She also picked out his outfit: a button-down shirt, pants and one of his favorite cardigan sweaters.

A friend of the family composed a Star Wars and Harry Potter-inspired song to play as Grant’s casket was brought out, and his friends held lightsabers in an arch formation during the procession.

Phil, who saw so much of himself in his son, said he lost a best friend when Grant died. He said the only thing he wanted for Christmas was to be able to hear Grant’s voice again and talk to him. He’s been sifting through Grant’s many journals, sharing highlights with his wife, to just briefly feel like his son is with him again.

“He’s got little things about his personality, little funny things in there, but also little things I’m reading where I realize how bad he felt. He was beating himself up for some stuff about not being able to go out with his girlfriend, or not being able to go off and do things with other friends, because he’s like, ‘I just don’t know how to tell people. I’m just so tired I can’t do these things.’ And he wasn’t even telling us this stuff,” Phil said with resentment that he didn’t know how Grant felt at times.

After Grant’s death, his younger brother relocated to Iowa, a move delayed by the hospitalization. That left Phil and Amy with a house to themselves. They’ve since adopted a Cardigan Welsh Corgi, the dog Grant wanted, named Hera after the Star Wars character. She was born two days before Grant died.

“It’s definitely weird that we’re empty nesters now, like abruptly,” Phil said, emphasizing that grief becomes even more intense during the holidays.

But while the family opens presents on Christmas, eagerly tossing wrapping paper, that 2005 picture of Grant will look down on them. And also two Converse sneaker ornaments — the only shoes Grant ever wore.

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