With Valentine’s just passed, it makes me ponder the durability of the heart.
I look at my father. He is 72 years old (I think). He had open heart double bypass graft surgery at 48. We stopped counting after five heart attacks following that over the past 25 years. Most of them have been blood clots. He is now on his third pacemaker in five years. His first one had to be replaced because, when the doctor cleared him to play golf, the doctor didn’t realize how vigorous my father plays golf. During his first round of golf upon healing, he managed to literally tear the leads from the pacemaker off of his heart and they had to go in and put another, stronger one in with two leads instead of one. His new one has a defibrillator and they had to stop his heart during the recent surgery to insert this one. Very scary considering that they think only 10-15% of his heart is actually functioning. And yet, he continues to function at such a high level, his doctors are staggered when they see him. Most people with a heart in as bad shape as his is would be dead, not able to get off the couch, unable to function, let alone play 18 holes of golf. My father’s screen name, by the way, is RoboRon. I think he’ll outlive us all.
Yet it is not the fact that his heart continues to beat that amazes me about my father’s heart, it is his heart’s ability to love. He is the most kind, generous, non-judgmental person you are likely to meet. Both he and my mother accept most people for what they are, flaws, faults, foibles and all. Through the whole demise of my marriage, they have never once said anything bad about my ex, even though there probably is plenty of reason to have something negative to say. His mother sure has. But as I was sitting in their living room one day, talking about all of this with my father, he said simply, “We only want you to be happy.” Just that. Nothing more. His gestures of love have included the first summer I was living on my own. I would stop by their place often and he would always have something new he had taped on his Betamax (yeah, that long ago). First, it was “Pippin” because I was a dancer then and he thought I would enjoy something by Fosse. Then it was “Jesus Christ Superstar” because he remembered I had seen it with some friends and really liked it. Even now, we talk independent films and he hands me a tape with “Red Rock West,” one of his favs. He and my mother stun me with their ability to give not only financially (Bank of Mom is very generous) but their ability to give emotionally. They have never found reason to turn their back on either of my ex-husbands and, if either of them would show up at their doorstep and need help, my parents would be the first ones to offer a hand. They set the bar high when it comes to unconditional love.
Which leads me to my own heart and it’s battered and worn state. Yet it keeps going, keeps ticking, keeps wanting to be used. I have a heart murmur, which I am not sure many of you know. It’s not a serious condition. Every once in a while, my heart jumps in a funny way and it makes me a bit woozy but it’s so rare that I don’t even notice it. It requires antibiotics when I visit the dentist and every new doctor listens to my heartbeat with a strange and quizzical expression when they examine me for the first time, even after I tell them I have this murmur.
And after having gone through two very difficult, heart-rending marriages, both of which did not succeed and both of which, in their own ways, came very close to destroying me, my heart continues to beat. It continues to want to be used again, to find someone new to make it flutter and make it skip a beat when that person is near. It has never been more broken than it was the night I told my recent ex that I needed some time away from him. Then it broke more when he showed up two weeks later with divorce papers, something I had not been ready for. It shattered the day I finished moving my things out of what had been our home for nine years of the 16 that we were together. As I hugged him for the last time, I could feel my heart cleave in half, a substantial part following him to his car and fading away as he drove off. I don’t think I’ll ever get that part back because it belongs to him for the rest of my life.
But in the last eight months, my heart has shown me that it is like a starfish – cut part of it off and it grows back. Even with several devastating events that threatened to tear apart what little I had left, my heart refused to give in. It hung on, it dug in and it sought to draw strength from those around me. The acceptance and unconditional love that seemed to find its way to me seemed to put little pieces of my battered heart back together, like Humpty Dumpty. So much so that I have been able to let it begin to love again, not just amongst those generous enough to want to add to my heart-bank, but truly fall in love again.
That, in and of itself, has brought on a whole new set of heart-related injuries and wounds, none too serious, just the typical oh-my-god-how-can-I-feel-like-this variety, especially that this love is not requited. But my heart, even vigilant, ever optimistic, ever durable, wants to be let out for this exercise, even if that’s all this is. Because my heart wants to be stretched and to be tested and to be let loose to let its affection go where it wants, my brain be damned. And I think it’s smart that way. If I kept it locked up and never let it out to play, how would I know that I can even love someone again? How would I know that I could love my friends the way I do? How could my heart be touched and moved and expanded by the beauty of the life that God has given me in these last eight months? It would never be satisfied to be kept secret and hidden. So I have to let it out to run willy-nilly and risk breaking it yet again just to be able to glean those wonderful, magical moments of true and pure love from those around me.
And, hopefully, it will find its way to someone who will gently cradle it in his hands and take over the care and feeding of this delicate yet powerful muscle and let me tend to his own heart.
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