When Hearts Begin to Bleed

Recently I've begun to think about pain. Not just any pain, but pain relating to the heart.

There are so many ways to hurt the heart: break up with your lover, hurl insults at someone, fail to achieve your dreams. The list feels endless because it practically is. But one underlying theme across all of this is loss.

Loss encompasses all things and is arguably the most painful thing we humans can go through. When we lose something, we hurt. Physical pain, spiritual pain, mental pain; it can all stem from some perceived loss as easily as we breathe. And when we lose something, our heart hurts. It bleeds.

But when exactly does the heart begin to bleed? When does a bruise transition into a gushing, open wound? I might just have some idea.

My mother passed away from breast cancer on April 27th, 2018. That's a date that is etched into my mind as clear as any memory can be. My mother's death was expected; at least, I expected it. As her condition got worse, I had spent the past half-year steeling myself to suddenly wake up one morning with one less parent to say good morning to.

Her death was inevitable, no matter how much she tried to tell me and everyone else otherwise. I thought I understood pain in those months leading up to April. My relationships with certain family members were strained. I had a hard time dealing with my anger. I both destroyed and deepened friendships and other relationships. Between the stress of college classes, family, and my mother's impending demise, I felt beat up. Bruised. Everywhere I turned, I was getting sucker-punched.

But my heart hadn't begun to bleed yet.

I'm not trying to diminish what I went through before my mother passed away, but after three years I've realized that pain was much more immediate and in my face. It really did feel like every day was a new desperate challenge to tackle, a new welt to add to my collection.

My heart didn't start bleeding until I walked into my mother's hospice room and saw her eyes closed, silently laying on her bed, her hand beginning to go cold.

It was after this I felt...relieved. Content. She wasn't in pain anymore. I wasn't in pain anymore. Nobody else was in pain anymore. My mother's suffering, and therefore mine, was over.

Of course, that wasn't the case. Those momentary beliefs were just delusions I created to stay sane. Grief doesn't just go away after you complete every step of the process. It lingers. It hides in your heart, waiting for a chance to cut it open once again. This is when the heart truly begins to bleed.

By now, after nearly three years of living without my mother, I'd say I'm as well-adjusted as I could be. I'm at the point where others come to me for advice when grief strikes them. The common question I always get is how do I do deal with grief? How do I stop the bleeding?

This is both an ingenious and stupid question. Ingenious, because this question stems from another person reaching out for help. It's always a good idea to get support when you need it. But this question is also stupid because we all already have the answer.

You don't stop the bleeding.

Wounds created through grief, through a loss, never truly heal. No matter what you do to fill that hole in your heart, it will never fill the shape of whatever you lost. Meaning there will always be cracks for the pain to pour out from.

That isn't to say you can't manage your pain, because you definitely can. Given time, anyone can develop healthy practices to live with their grief. But that doesn't change the fact that our hearts will always bleed.

My advice to deal with grief? If you find your heart hurting, don't hesitate to reach out to someone. Sure, you could try to manage it on your own, but that rarely works. Trust me, I've tried that.