Beating Hearts

Yesterday, I studied the date on the donkey calendar that hangs over my desk for more than a moment trying to recall why August 2nd was significant when it finally hit me: six years ago on August 2nd, I had heart surgery. It wasn’t open heart surgery with a cracked open chest but instead, a procedure where they went in through my femoral artery to travel into my heart with heated instruments whose mission was to cauterize the ends of several rouge nerves that were misfiring around my struggling heart. The real kicker of the surgery was that I had to be awake in order to have my heart behaving in her most natural way. It hurt like hell.

I’ve talked in my blog before about my heart surgery, so I won’t go into more detail about that particular day, but what I am reminded of everytime this date rolls around is just how important it is to properly care for your sweet heart and just how great the strength is of that little ticker. Dr. Seuss said that you’re “stronger than you seem” and I’m pretty sure that kind of deep-seeded strength comes from your ole beating heart. I got to know my heart pretty well that day—that day when I learned what it felt like to have your heart literally touched. I ached when she was burned over and over but you know, I’ve never met a person that didn’t have scars on their heart. It’s universal. It connects us.

Beating hearts. This world is full of them. I’ve sometimes thought that if I could have a superpower, I’d like the ability to hear other people’s heart beats from a distance. I think of how many times my heart has thudded so heavily that I could hardly hear anything over its thumping in my ears and I wonder if other people’s hearts do that too and to what extent. Like when you see something or meet someone that makes your heart leap around like hyper harlequin, wouldn’t it be comforting to know if other hearts were just as frantic in that moment? I think if our hearts could move like it, they’d respond to situations in the same way dog’s tails do: wagging when happy, hanging when sad, tucking when scared.

I also truly believe that if everyone would stop, even for a split second, and think about how everyone…everyone…has a little beating heart inside their chest that’s capable of being happy and timid and terrified and brave and every shade in between, then maybe we’d be less likely to be so cruel to each other. If we could imagine the uncharted and infinite depths of our potential kindnesses that are hungry to be explored and embraced, then maybe we would actually start to know peace.

I love hearts. I love their complexity, their strength, their sounds, and their endurance. I love that there is fortitude in their vulnerabilities. I love that they have chambers opening and closing and flowing with rich blood because that image is just the coolest scene to imagine. I love that they can be burned, literally and figuratively, and still continue to beat strongly.

Anyway…here’s to continual heart health, y’all. The heart in me honors the heart in you. Badum, badum, badum.