The Beauty of a Broken Heart

As you move through life you inevitably end up with a broken heart. It may be the loss of a loved one, a pet, friend or family member, when you are just a little child. That ache that you do not truly understand yet, the time where you wonder if they will come back, and whether they are really dead or just resting their eyes. It may be the cruelty of other children who tear at your heart, breaking little pieces of it with every horrible taunt, nasty word or physical push and shove. Perhaps it is the realisation that life is not all sunshine and happiness when you get hit with a lifelong chronic disease or watch someone you love struggle with a burden. Or maybe it is the thing we often associate with broken hearts, the loss of a lover, a crush, a friend or a partner, whether that be through break up or death.

The broken heart that must hurt the worst, break the most parts, has to be the loss of your child. I have not had this experience so can not speak from knowing, but only from the knowing of how much your heart grows and swells when you become a parent. And then, once you are a parent, the fact that you have your heart broken and put back together again, boosted and filled, over and over and over. Yes that must be the kind of broken heart that is the hardest to bear.

But there is much beauty in a broken heart – each time your heart is broken, it mends. In some way it is put back together again. I imagine it like one of those kaleidoscopes with the coloured gems all moving around in different waves as you peer in. There may be pieces that you lose forever, like the ones from the death of a very close friend or family member, sometimes you just never feel like that place in your heart will ever be the same. It is just like this, a poem I wrote when I lost my best friend in the whole world and who took a piece of my heart that has never come back.

And now you are gone.
You didn’t mention your pain,
like always,
the gracious friend
not looking inwards,
just out to others
like a sunflower facing the sun.
And now you are gone.
My mind fills up
with so many memories,
like a photo album of our lives,
an instagram to your heart,
just as my eyes well up with tears
spilling over onto my cheeks.
And now you are gone.
We knew we would lose you
for such a long time,
yet I wanted to hold you,
smell you,
kiss your cheek before you went,
to say my goodbyes.
And now you are gone.
And I did not get that chance,
but you knew all these things
the last time we met,
you knew
and your hug at the door
said your goodbye,
it said, I am done now.
You wanted to slip away
without fuss,
without the centre stage,
just as always.
You are the stars in my sky
the shimmer of light
that falls across the table
in the afternoon sun,
the touch of a warm rug
nestled on my lap,
the bubbles as I sink
into a warm bath,
giggles in the corner
as we laughed and laughed,
my meditation and my angel,
like the arms of a sweet baby
wrapped around my neck,
the soft breeze
blowing on my face.
And now you are gone.

When your heart breaks, it comes back together again – a little different, usually stronger, just as beautiful, or even more so, because it has lost something, but oh how it has loved, and it has survived. Resilience is a remarkable thing – through experiencing hard stuff, you are able to become more resilient, and I believe a broken heart grows more and more resilient – not hard and sharp and closed, but resilient. Softer, more pliable, more able to experience empathy, to understand human nature, to connect with others.

I was considering the losses I have experienced over the past 15 years today, as we have been in the final stages of closing the diabetes charity and counselling services I founded in 2001 – and my mum reminded me of all of the deaths we experienced in these years, her parents, my father’s mum, my 2 best friends, her friends and relatives…and how helping all those thousands of people as we did over the years had helped her in dealing with those losses. It hit me that the closing of this remarkable thing I created was another big loss, and I had some (more) tears, but then I recognised the feeling of happiness, of growth and the fact that there is nothing but positive in this journey, despite some parts of my heart being broken along the way, they have been more than replaced by something even more beautiful – gratitude, joy, peace, satisfaction and excitement about the next chapter.

And it led me yet again to the words of Joni Mitchell – there is something lost and something gained in living every day. And that my friends is the beauty of a broken heart right there.
Helen
xx