Courtney B Kaplan - Hope Happens Here

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Courtney B Kaplan - Hope Happens Here

Author, speaker, organ donation advocate, and healthcare professional sharing honest stories rooted in lived experience. Hope Happens Here.

Creator of Transplant Hope: The Healing Journey and Women Rising. I am a best-selling author, award-winning speaker, organ donation advocate, and the creator of the Transplant Hope Method — the Healing Journey, a heart-centered approach to education, advocacy, and connection for individuals and families navigating organ donation and legacy. My work is rooted in lived experience, compassion, and clarity. Through books, educational guidance, advocacy conversations, and storytelling, I help create understanding around complex and emotional topics with dignity and care. This space exists to offer insight, awareness, and thoughtful guidance — honoring donor heroes, gifted lives, and the love that continues beyond a single moment.

🤍 Hope happens here — through legacy, love, and life.

09/14/2026

We've talked about the call, and about Michael's gift. Here's what I want to leave you with...

We all get here through a series of decisions, and the good news is we control the next one. You decide how you react. You decide how you cope. You decide what you do with the circumstances you're living in.

Look back at your own path, not to judge yourself, all of us do the best we can with what we knew at the time, but to notice what you'd want to carry forward differently.

Remember that fist from the beginning? You squeezed harder when I asked, and you found it. That's proof of what's already in you.

Keep going. Don't let your circumstances define you, and don't let them take your power.

09/12/2026

If you missed part 1, my son Michael was in a serious accident and I was about to find out what strength really meant.

There was nothing and nobody that could get me through what came next except my faith. One phrase became my anchor: if it's gonna be, it starts with me.

I lost my son that day. I grieve him every single day, and some days I can barely function. And in the middle of that grief, I carry a gratitude I never expected. Michael was an organ donor. His gift of life saved eight people, and touched countless more.

That's the part of this story that still humbles me.

09/11/2026

Before you scroll past this, make a fist. Squeeze it as tight as you can.
Now squeeze harder...

That's where this starts, and it's about internal strength, the kind you don't find until life demands it from you.

Three years ago I got a phone call every parent prays they never get. My son Michael had been seriously injured in a car accident.
In that moment I realized I was about to find out what I was actually made of.

09/10/2026

People come to me holding a question they don't say out loud. If I'm not who I was before this, who am I now.

I know that question personally. I identify as a mother who lost a child. I carry that like a scarlet letter, a part of me now that doesn't define me. It took years to be able to say that sentence and mean both halves of it.

I hear a different version of the same question from recipients carrying a body that isn't fully theirs and isn't fully who they used to be either. Different losses. Same underneath.

I don't have a formula that fixes that. What I have is four conversations I built because I needed them and couldn't find them anywhere else.

Not therapy. Not a fix. Just a place to ask the question out loud instead of carrying it alone.

Healing Journey opens soon. More on that when it's ready.

You don't have to know who you are now.
You just have to be willing to ask.

The scarlet letter line is strong enough that it could become a recurring thread across this whole identity pillar rather than a one-off, worth keeping in your back pocket for future posts too.

09/09/2026

Some days I'm on a stage with a microphone.
Some days I'm a mother filling out paperwork nobody prepares you for.
Some days it's both in the same afternoon.

In 2019 my son Michael was eighteen, a week and a half from graduating, when I lost him. He saved six lives and touched the lives of more than 75 others through his gift. That part is fact, not framing.

Here's the part that's harder to say out loud. I identify as a mother who lost a child. I carry that like a scarlet letter. It's a part of me now. It doesn't define me.

I didn't choose this identity. Nobody does. But I get to choose what I do with it, and that's not the same as saying it happened for a reason. It didn't. I don't believe loss needs to make sense to be survivable.

There is no right way to carry a loss like this.
There's only your way.
Carry the letter. Just don't let it write the whole story.

08/22/2026

I wrote a letter to 6 stranger in September 2019. I didn't know if anyone would ever read it.

Four months after my son Mikey's accident, I sat down to write to the people who received the gift of organ donation. I had no idea who they were. I just knew I needed them to know who he was, my gratitude for their courage, and welcome them into my family.

Eleven months later, a message arrived. The man who received Mikey's double lung transplant, Harold is thriving today, two thousand miles away.

I still think about the many families, sitting with a blank sheet of paper, and love with no place to go. Finding the words for what feels like the deepest gratitude one can feel while feeling the cost to the donor family.

I'm creating a safe a supported space to help with exactly that. Whether it's supporting the families directly, advising the 'Aftercare Department' at our OPO's nationwide, or simply guiding families through the uncertain currants of grief.

If this is something you or your program needs, or you're a family holding a letter you haven't sent yet, I'd love to be with you.💞

08/13/2026

🌟 Ignite Your Positive Vibe: Embrace the Energy!

Hello, beautiful souls! 🔮 I’m here to share a sprinkle of love and wisdom to help you radiate positivity and embrace the joy of life. Ready to turn up the good vibes? Here are three heartfelt tips just for you:

1. Gratitude Gaze: Each morning, pause and reflect on three things you’re grateful for. This simple act can shift your mindset and fill your heart with warmth. 🌞

2. Mindful Moments: Throughout your day, take mini-breaks to breathe deeply and center yourself. Even a few minutes can lift your spirit and bring peace to your mind. 🧘‍♀️

3. Joyful Connection: Reach out to someone you love with a kind word or gesture. Love shared is love amplified, and your positivity will ripple out to touch others. 💌

Let’s embark on this journey together! Share your experiences and uplift others with your newfound positivity.
🌻 Share this post with someone who needs a little extra sunshine today!

08/12/2026

Today is the day! 🦋

At noon, I’ll be speaking at a GHA Sponsored Event;
Mental Wellness Matters and sharing a deeply personal message entitled, “Where Did You Go?”

Mental illness does not affect one person.
It changes entire families.
We grieve, question ourselves, search for answers, and often carry the whole experience quietly because we are afraid of what people may think.

Today, I’m speaking from inside that truth.
Not as someone with all the answers,
but as a mother who knows what it feels like to love someone fiercely while trying to find them beneath the illness.
If you have ever asked, “Where did the person I love go?”
I hope you’ll join me. You are not alone. 💕

Wednesday, August 12
12:00 to 2:00 PM
Loaded Empanadas
750 N. Rampart Blvd. #15, Las Vegas
Admission is free. Food is available for purchase.

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mental-wellness-matters-tickets-1981605687956

08/11/2026

Some days I wear a wig.
Some days I don’t.
Sometimes I’m blonde, brunette, or auburn.
Short, long, glamorous, casual, bald, bold, or somewhere in between. 💁🏻‍♀️✨

Since 2018, I have been managing complete and total hair loss. Let me tell you..was that a hit to my self-esteem and self-worth. My hair was a huge part of my identity, my confidence, and my attractiveness. I didn't think much of myself anyway, but at least I had great hair..
sound familiar to anyone?
I felt like Uncle Fester 🤥
Well, what happens when it all goes away? What's left is the gapping hole in your wholeness.
The good news is..
that hole in my 'wholeness' is being slowly healed by replacing the lies with the truths.
My reality is created by my perceptions. My perceptions are built on whats observed. Whats observed is created by the stories I tell myself. Those meanings are mine to write and therefore, I can flip the script. So can you!
There is only YOUR way.
How you show up belongs to you.
Change your hair.
Change your mind.
Take up space.
Be seen.

08/10/2026

Five children, extreme stress, anxiety, and a lifetime of always having to DO eventually took a toll on my body and my soul. And let’s be honest, there were times, okay MOST times, when catching my reflection could put a wrench in my entire mood. 😬

Turning 51 came with a few unexpected “chapter notes.” I realized I had spent years holding space for everyone else’s comfort while shrinking myself. I had played a charact-HER for so long that I wasn’t sure who I was without all the roles. Food, distraction, and binge-watching 'Love Is Blind' provided temporary comfort, but they weren’t working for the woman emerging. Apparently watching other people make questionable decisions through a wall wasn’t going to solve mine. 😂

Well, here I am! I can sit with my own thoughts and a little stillness without wanting to puke. Progress! 🙌
Have you experienced this kind of “ego death,” when the version of you built for survival stops fitting the woman you’re becoming?

Address

Las Vegas, NV

Telephone

+17028485639

Website

http://www.courtneybkaplan.co/

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