My Heart

I was speaking with my aunt on the phone - my beloved aunt who had polio when she was a child and has had pain every day of her life because of it. And, what a life she is having. Sailboat racing. Building a family place on the coast of Maine, knitting, quilt-making, culinary excellence (even on the boat!), and a love of entertaining and theater and anything you ask her to do. She is older and facing some back issues, and I was remarking, or maybe I should say marveling, at the way she pushes through it all without complaining to the point that most of us never thought of her daily pain.

"I'm shocked, Molly, that you called this two months ago. You were right. It's your spine. It took the doctors months, but you knew."

"I know my body. I have had this pain before. I have pain every day." She says it without self-pity or sadness, like I would. I have experienced two hip replacements in the last few years, but before that I have never had a body that was in trouble in any way.

I thought for a moment. "You know, Molly, I just met my body recently. I never noticed that it was following me around all these years. It never bothered me, but I never cared enough about it to feed it the least bit of loving care or even nurturing food for that matter. Now, I feel it."

She laughed at me. I laughed at me, and we moved on to other things because she doesn't dwell like I do in the darker parts of thought.

A few days later, I had an echocardiogram. Nothing wrong, but checking all systems now. You have to lie there, still, for close to an hour while the technician runs her gel-laden probe over your heart area. She stops, you hear a click, and the image is taken. She does it over and over again.

I'm not known for lying there quietly. I usually surround myself with the distraction of my phone, a film, or a book, or even petting my dog Bay. I don't hang out in my bed in the mornings contemplating my heart.

I had an epiphany on that table. I felt, for the first time, like I could 'see' my heart. I could feel it. I was overwhelmed with love for it. For the years and years and decades of it beating. Beating without pause. Confidently. Proudly. Without complaint or request for payment.

I said thank you, the words of which are between me and my heart.

Then I realized that my heart has given me so much more than a steady beat keeping me alive. It has been open and vulnerable to change and my personal pain. It has brought ... and rejected love and caring for the humans that have shaped who I am. It is the place where a video of a neglected dog from TikTok sends me searching for a Kleenex. It is where I feel the surge of love toward my beloved Sarah when she walks into the room.

I guess others might say that the things I attribute to my heart actually originate in my brain. But this past week, on that table, in that darkened room, I can tell you that I am sure they originate in my heart. It's my brain that processes them afterward, not always with my best interest in mind, but they begin, they are born, in my heart.