Cameron Bean is seen running in this photo contributed by his family.The worst bad day was Sept. 19, this fall, the day she got the telephone call she had been dreading all of her life.
Her son, a 28-year-old nationally ranked runner, had been struck by a car and fatally injured while training on Moccasin Bend Road.
"That was always my fear, that someone would hit him," Lisa Bean said, standing outside the entrance to Erlanger hospital.
Cameron started running in kindergarten, so the fear had been there for a long time.
What happened in the two days before Cameron died in the hospital is largely a blur, Lisa said, but at some point, a representative of Tennessee Donor Services asked the Beans if they would consider donating their son's organs. She said they didn't hesitate.
"When I meet him in heaven, he is going to ask me, 'Why didn't you do that?' It was the obvious thing to do," Lisa said.
On Friday, the Beans - Lisa, her husband Steve, and their 33-year-old son Chris - were at Erlanger to urge others to pledge to donate their organs.
Five people - four men and a woman - received Cameron's heart, lungs, liver and two kidneys, and all are doing well, Steve Bean said. Lisa was surprised to learn the youngest recipient was 35, but the others were in their late 50s and early 60s. She'd expected them to be closer in age to her son.
Inside the hospital, Lisa made a short speech to a crowd of about 50 people in the Erlanger lobby, including family, friends, hospital staffers and representatives from Tennessee Donor Services.
"What Cameron means to me, to his grandparents, his cousins and aunt - I don't know where to begin except to say that the love and memories he left us is his greatest treasure," she said. "He made everyone he met feel valued."
She was followed by Natalie Cothran, a longtime local science teacher who received one kidney transplant in 1992, and then a second in 2014, when her first transplanted organ failed.
"I'm back, working with children part time in education," Cothran said. "I'm happy to stand before you today and talk about the importance of organ donation."
Erlanger provided 26 organ donors in 2015, hospital CEO Kevin Spiegel told the crowd, resulting in the donation of 101 organs.
"That's 101 lives that were saved," Spiegel said.
But more donors are needed. Some 2,800 Tennesseans are on a life-saving organ waiting list, Spiegel said, and 22 people die nationally every day for lack of a transplant.
After the ceremony, the Beans and Cothran went outside and raised a "Donate Life" flag on the Erlanger flagpole.
The memory of their son is still very close at hand.
"It's been six months [since his death]," Steve Bean said after the ceremony. "You go through shock and then reality sets in - he's not coming back."
The trial of the woman charged with killing Cameron is set for early August. Until that is over, the Beans are not ready to move on.
Cameron's memory "is a 24-hour continual thought in your mind," Steve Bean said.
The Beans said they hope to keep Cameron's memory alive by working with the local running community. There are plans for a 5K race and a mile run in his honor on Aug. 27. The company he worked for, ZAP Fitness, is building a house in his memory in Boone, N.C., where he trained, to provide other runners with a place to stay.
Lisa Bean said she plans to work with local elementary and high school students to stress the importance of running and exercise.
And some day, she said, she might like to meet the people who were the recipients of his organ donations.
She hopes they got more than just a transplant.
"I hope the people who got his organs got a little bit of his spirit, as well," she said.
Contact staff writer Steve Johnson at sjohnson@timesfreepress.com, 423-757-6673, on Twitter @stevejohnsonTFP, and on Facebook, www.facebook.com/noogahealth.