In my work at The Hospice Care Center of Visiting Nurse Services in Akron, Ohio, I visit many patients and families whose hearts are broken through the pain of loss. Death symbolizes many experiences. One is the death of a dream. Many patients and families have hopes and dreams to create certain life experiences with their mate and family. When these dreams are held at bay and are coming to a close in death, a broken heart begins to replace the dream and the hopes of mates and their families.



This is also the case in our own lives. When life does not go as we planned, there is a feeling of loss. It feels like every atom in our body is breaking apart. Our heart feels sad. Our mind is confused and lacking direction.

During this time, we can feel that our life is no longer purposeful. We begin to hide our heart from ever getting hurt again. This notion is useless, and we know it. Even if we pull away from the pain of others, we cannot hide from the pain of knowing life is a series of gains and losses.

Our losses can become dominant in our life if we cut off this opportunity to feel, reflect, and become acquainted with our grief. In grief, our heart hurts. It feels like it is being split into two parts. The first part represents our past. The second part represents our future.

The first part of a broken heart is characterized by losing a portion of our life that has brought us to this moment of sorrow. We begin to remember the joys and sorrows of our life with the one(s) we loved. Each moment becomes more than a memory. Each experience becomes a living presence in our heart.

When the death of a physical relationship or experience becomes apparent, a rush of energy floods this first part of a broken heart. As the intensity of loss unfolds, this energy enables us to be sustained by a power greater than ourselves. Here, we are held in a nurturing bond we cannot see.

The second part of a broken heart represents our future. At this point, we begin to envision a life without the one(s) we loved. Sometimes, we begin to feel guilty about this part of our heart. We do not feel we have a right to feel anything but sorrow during a time of loss. This is why a heart can feel as though it is breaking, and filled with hope at the same time. Somehow, this gives us a balancing of energies within to sustain us.

Between the joys and sorrows of a broken heart is an empty space. It is the sacred space of seeking. This spacial quality within us uncovers the landscape of our soul moving to envelop our heart with strength beyond its perceived sense of self. We are filled with spirit and infused with power to find peace in the midst of despair.

This spacial quality where our soul (awareness) is infused by spirit (eternal love) is freeing to a person experiencing a sense of loss giving us hope for the future. Our heart is held in this quality of our being. We reflect on this movement realizing this part of our experience will never die. Our pain becomes a strengthening of our soul. Our soul is empowered by the source of its life. And, divinity brings our attention into the light of hope. At this point, we begin to listen with our heart. Our heart knows the way to this peace beyond understanding.

In a world where families are breaking apart due to deaths, divorces, children killed in gangs, and more, our hearts are being ripped apart. It becomes increasingly difficult to consider our family as a place where we can be in refuge from the rest of our world. It is as though there are no more boundaries in a place the world once could not penetrate. Thus, our hearts are broken by this unseen force entering the consciousness of every home.

We are left to pick up the pieces the best way we can. In the face of hopelessness, we long to find hope. The result is a myriad of hearts broken by the chaos around us, and now, in us. It is as though we are all receiving a lesson on evolution. Evolution teaches us that what comes into being, must someday, come to an end. In the end, we become ONE with what brings all life into being.

This sadness filling our heart is great, and we begin to look within for strength and safety. As our awareness moves to the center of our broken heart, we search for guidance. We move through multiple layers of existence within us. We move through the pain of losses that have encompassed our lives to this moment, we move through the losses we had hoped for, and we grieve the loss of using up this present moment with what demands our attention. At the end of this journey, a broken heart enters into emptiness.

Imagine living your life so close to a person that you share the same heart beat, the same thoughts, the same feelings, and the same bodily fluids. Such is the case of a baby in the womb of its mother. Each breath is a channel of life drawn in to connect with a small child waiting to be born. All this child could ever need and want is dependent of its mother’s care.

Then, it comes. It is time for this child to be born. The sum of this child’s human experience, thus far, has been sustained by the love of its mother. Now, this child has to let go of all it has known in order to be born. For the first time, a child has to contemplate a life outside its mother’s womb. The beginning of a personal identity develops. The known becomes a mystery. The unknown is embraced.

The child has been a part of a world it has loved. As this child enters a brave new world, this child carries with her a sense of being loved beyond human understanding. The adventuresome spirit - a child’s soul knows it has to move on to embrace its destiny. As her heart is broken, an outpouring of peace deep within her creates a path. And, it feels like it is moving in and through the heart. It is a path not able to be seen, but it is vividly felt as real inside us. It is the path of spirit.

Along this spiritual path, a child enters a world filled with adventure and mystery. There is a peace within this path creating invisible links into the unseen world. It has a similar feeling to that of a loving mother holding the hand of a frightened child. It is the peace filled love of the feminine spirit carrying a child through the fear of the unknown, and into, the freedom of its most authentic self.

Samuel Oliver, author of, "What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living"