Where Can I Take My Broken Heart?

by Deb Kosmer

When our cars get dirty and grimy and yucky, we take them to the car wash. And, lo and behold, they go through and wind up on the other side looking pretty good; clean and refreshed and ready to go where we take them.

When the ground outside becomes dry and hard and our plants and flowers begin to wilt, shrivel, and die, the rain comes and revives, revitalizes, and renews the ground and the flowers and plants. If the rain does not come naturally, we take matters into our own hands and we intervene; we help nature by running our sprinkler, or using a watering can. And, lo and behold, the ground becomes pliable again and our plants, flowers and lawn are bright and colorful and vibrant and showing new growth again.

When we become ill and our physical bodies aren’t working well, we go to the doctor or the pharmacy and/or to bed. We rest and nurture ourselves and allow time for the healing to begin.

Where do we go, though, with a heart—our heart—when it is broken, wounded, raw, numb, and perhaps even dead? Where do we take a heart—our heart—that we feel is beyond repair, that we believe will never love again? Where do we take a heart—our heart—that is afraid of exposure that wants to withdraw from the world and go within itself so deep that no one can find it or touch it or wound it again?

Is there a car wash? A doctor? A pharmacist? A healing bed? What is there for a heart that has been torn apart? Our heart?

There is a place to take a hurting heart—our heart—but it requires courage. It requires us to face our fears. It requires us to walk into our pain not turn or run from it. It requires us to release our tears, not hold them back, for with the release of tears comes release of pain. It requires us to remember our loved ones and why they were in our hearts to begin with and why they will remain there for always despite the fact that they died. It requires us to look anger, sadness, devastation, rage, guilt, doubt, fear, regret, remorse, and denial, straight in the face and express them out loud.

It requires the truth; that we say how we really feel, that we no longer mask the pain or hide the truth from others. In order to be vibrant and glowing, refreshed and renewed, we must first be who and what and where we are. We must live in this moment and all the muddy yucky moments to come. Then and only then can we come out on the other side with a heart no longer broken, a heart that still holds our loved one but a heart that can love and live again.