Wounded hearts

I’ve seen two mothers, two families lose children—daughters—this month. One daughter died after years of ALS, leaving behind a husband and her own daughter. The other, a daughter with a developmental disability, died today at the age of 15. 

“You’re in my prayers,” I say, I type on Facebook, I write in a note card. But really what it is, is —“You’re in my heart.” In my wounded and broken heart. 

Driving home from work today, listening to the news, I heard more grief: parents of the two women killed at Chicago’s Mercy Hospital yesterday, talking about their daughters and about their loss. I keep thinking it’s a dream and I’ll wake up, said the mother. She knew God, she was a praying woman, said the parents. 

Things fall apart. We share the broken pieces and fall apart together, as much as we dare, and keep going, doing what needs to be done. 

There is anger, grief, struggle, and an ache inside that we hope won’t be there in the morning, but it’s still there in the dark night, still there at dawn. Even very old wounds break open when hearts around us are breaking. It’s a kind of sympathetic vibration, like music, but in beats and pulses unique to human hearts.