I was Born With a Broken Heart
I was born with a broken heart. Literally. But it took me much longer to understand the other ways a heart can break.
I was born with multiple heart defects, including restricted valves that didn’t work properly, a hole between two of the ventricles that caused a murmur that all the medical students always wanted a chance to listen to, and transposed vessels that kept up to 40% of my oxygenated blood from circulating throughout my body.
I was a “blue baby”, with purple-blue tinged lips and fingernails, mottled skin, and fingers that were beginning to club by the time I had my first surgery at four years of age. I was also a child living with trauma and grief she couldn’t name, because my father died when I was 2 years and 3 months old. I had inherited my “broken” heart from him, and his death was the first in a list of traumas I would endure in childhood and beyond.
I don’t remember much from those very early years, but I do remember a lot of doctors, nurses, and the smell of hospitals. I have snapshots in my mind of the hospital stay before and after my surgery. Of sitting in a hospital bed with rails (a crib, of sorts?) and the feeling of abandonment and fear. I remember feeling pride when I walked out of intensive care. Who does that? A four year old who doesn’t know she is supposed to be sick. (My grandmother almost fainted when I came off the elevator, and a host of doctors and interns watched in shock as my mother pushed my IV behind me). I remember riding a tricycle in the playroom, making ice cream with the nurses, and wearing my Bert and Ernie slippers (to whom I talked on a regular basis – my friends on my feet from Sesame Street).
And before I understood trauma, grief, anxiety, or emotional wounds, I already knew what it meant to live inside a body that struggled. I couldn’t describe to you that I was different, but I knew that I was. I couldn’t explain the feeling of weakness and vulnerability and bone-deep fear, but I experienced those feelings and more. I couldn’t tell adults that it was hard to breathe sometimes and that I heard my heartbeat in my ears when I tried to sleep at night, but I whispered stories to myself under my blanket to try and calm myself. And I imagined the beat of my heart in my ears was actually the sound of my dad’s footsteps as he climbed a long stairway to Heaven.
I was often a sad child. A lonely introverted melancholy girl, who pretended to be the opposite with lots of talking and over-sharing. I felt everything very deeply, but didn’t express it, and when I did, it didn’t always go well. I just knew that I was “difficult”, “too much”, and “needy”. Needing to soak in a tub to remove surgical tape from a wound that stretched from my throat to my belly just reminded me that I was different, extra, and a lot of work.
In those early years, and into my elementary days, I learned how to smile when I was exhausted. I learned how to check up on and comfort other people before I learned how to comfort myself. I learned how to disappear emotionally while still appearing present. I retreated often into a world of my own creation, where I was a princess who needed rescuing, but no one came, so I rescued myself. I read voraciously (and still do), escaping into lands of fantasy and make-believe, crying with sad heroines and laughing with silly ones.
And before I understood empathy, resilience, intuition, and compassion, I already knew how to live out those characteristics. I couldn’t describe what it meant to love (or miss) someone so deeply it hurt, but I lived it. I took on the role of keeping others safe, even at my own expense, and I fostered creativity and imagination as coping skills that turned into life skills that turned into livelihood.
I remember looking at my surgery scar around the age of 10, and wondering if it made me unloveable. If it would be a deterrent someday to the prince that might eventually show up. I ran my finger up and down, tracing the scar from my throat to my belly, and over the years I watched as it became shorter as I grew. I don’t remember hating the scar, but I spent years wishing I could become someone unscarred. Both physically and emotionally.
Eventually, in my early 20’s, when my grandmother asked me one day if I’d ever considered plastic surgery to remove it, I stopped in my tracks and realized – no, it was a part of me now. I stood there for a moment, a little surprised by my own certainty. For years, I had daydreamed about being someone without the trauma or the broken heart. And I had prayed for healing that never came, rescue that never arrived, and for strength and energy that I simply couldn’t find. But, looking back now I know I had more strength than I thought I did. And now I know the scars are part of the reason I can hold both grief and joy at the same time. The scars, physical and mental and emotional, are part of what makes me, ME.
Three years ago, at the age of 50, a surgeon cut me open again for a second open-heart surgery to fix what was still broken in my heart. The old surgery scar from childhood is entwined with the new surgery scar from mid-life. They overlap and run together, and remind me of everything I’ve been through. I can express pain and fear and trauma and heartache (physical and mental) now. I can share joy and sorrow, grief and anger. I am not “too much”, or “difficult” or “needy”. I am me, full of real happiness, laughter, and sorrow and frustration. I continue to peel back the layers of my “trauma onion”, each and every day. And I am strong. And healthy. And resilient.
I was born with a broken heart. But it still beats. In fact, it beats better than it ever has in my 53 years. It beats steadily. Softly. Stubbornly. Hopefully.
Maybe healing was never about becoming unbroken after all.
Psalm 34:18 “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
If you’ve ever lived in a body or a story that felt like too much, I wrote this for me and for you. This is the first layer of the “trauma onion” – peeling back layers, one at a time as I write my story and work through healing. There are many more layers to come — and I’d love for you to write your own story alongside me.
