When the Heart is Broken . . .

Why is the heart the symbol of love?  Have you ever seen a human heart?  It's disgusting.  It just looks like a blob of muscle and mush.  Although the heart we learn to draw and cut out as a child somewhat resembles the organ inside of our chest that pumps blood to our extremities, it does no justice when it comes to representing it.  The hearts we draw and cut out are too pretty.  The heart-shaped box that holds the chocolates around Valentine's Day is way too perfect.  It's just not an accurate representation of the real heart.  But we continue to use the "pretty" heart as a representation of our love.  The "pretty" heart continues to be the image most commonly associated with love.

"I love you with all my heart."

"He has my heart."

"She showed so much heart."

"His heart just wasn't in it."

"I gave my heart away."

"He broke my heart."

"I <3 you."

"She took a piece of my heart with her."

"My heart goes out to them."

So where did this image of the heart come from?  Long ago in primitive times it was believed that the heart was the epicenter of all human emotion.  The heart is found in the center of a person--the torso.  People believed that emotions and feelings were so strong that they must come from the very center of our being.  With the heart being the center of all emotion it only made sense that the strongest of all emotions--love--simply must come from the heart.  Loving another person was viewed as such an act of giving that the idea developed that one could "give their heart away" to another person.  That other person, therefor, had a piece of the other's heart.  When love came to an end you were left with two broken hearts.

I also wonder if the term "broken heart" may have originated from that feeling you get when love ceases?  We've all had that feeling.  It's a deep pain in our chest.  It cuts through us like a knife and we're left wondering if we'll ever be able to love again the way we did previously.  Amy and I have had that pain for the past 70 days.  Something does feel broken inside my chest.  It just doesn't feel right.  We still wonder if it will ever feel "normal" again.

Although we now know that emotions originate in our brain, the symbolism of the heart as the center of all love has remained prevalent.  Even though we know the heart does not "house" our emotions we do know that our very lives are dependent on our hearts.  I don't know all the anatomy and physiology involved, but that one muscle pumps life-giving blood throughout our body.  It is our very source of life.  If it's working properly that person still has life in them.  When it's not working life stops altogether.

Last Friday we finally received the autopsy results after 9 weeks.  There's a lot of medical jargon, but essentially there was a virus present in Thomas which contributed to his life ceasing.  Although not completely conclusive, the coroner's conclusion was that the virus most likely made its way to Thomas' heart very quickly and caused sudden cardiac arrest.  It was a very normal virus, in which 1 in 100,000 cases lead to death.  That's .001%.  It's possible there was some sort of undetectable heart defect that had been preexistent and it's possible that his being born two months premature contributed to it somehow.

We may never know precisely what killed our baby boy.  What we do know is his heart stopped on December 12, 2012.  His body, which had been so full of life for 21 months, didn't have the necessary mechanisms to fight back and decided it was time to shut down.  Our hearts broke that day along with his, and there are pieces of my heart all over the place.  I guess that's what happens when you give it away.

Thomas took pieces of my heart with him.  There's a piece of my heart buried several feet underground.  There's a piece my heart at the park, the swimming pool, the football field, the church, the nursery, the basketball court, our front yard and all over our house.  It's impossible for us to miss the pieces of him he left behind along with the pieces of our hearts he captured.

Our hearts will never be the same.  There will always be a "Thomas-shaped" void in our hearts.  He seemed to take a piece of everyone--or more likely we gave it to him.  However, we are blessed to have pieces of his heart still with us.  He made such an impact on those he came in contact with that pieces of his heart are all over the place.

In fact, we had the privilege of donating pieces of his heart to other small children and we received confirmation that they were able to use two of his heart valves as donor organs.  There literally is a piece of Thomas' heart in two small children somewhere in the world.  Two other children were able to continue living because our Thomas died.  That warms my heart.