This isn't for everyone, and I hope you don't resonate....

... but if you do, please know you're not alone. And if you don't, please share with the person you know who needs it.

Melancholy, by Albert Gyorgy

Romanian born sculptor, Albert Gyorgy, created this beautiful work of art after the death of his wife. The original is at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, where he now resides.

Wordless, it speaks to countless grieving people.

This powerful sculpture came to mind last Saturday when I landed at Houston’s Hobby Airport for a quick weekend of connecting with part of my family. It was my first time back in Houston since 2021, a year full of flights to Houston and visits to MD Anderson Cancer Center. It’s a great institution, but not everyone experiences the miracle.

That evening, I wrote this note to me, to you, to all of us.

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Dear aching heart,

It’s real, that pain there in your solar plexus, 
              in your gut, in your throat when you try to speak 
                        or just swallow.
        It’s so real, that deep bruise in your heart.
It’s not "just" in your mind (that hurts too, I know). It’s not imaginary.
        It’s real. 

And I know it doesn’t help when no one sees it, or when they do see it but they mis-read it. 
    Or they recognize it but don’t know what to do or say. How could they know? 

It’s impossible to describe it even when we’re living it, too big and dark for us to understand, so how could they understand? 

And it’s hard when they try, isn’t it? –  when they want to see what they know they can’t see, but they love you and their kindness bumps the bruise and that hurts too?

Nothing about this isn’t hard.

Because it’s real and it always hurts.  

Please know you’re not alone.

I know you feel alone with this. 
Not always, maybe, but mostly – so alone.
And yes, your ache is yours alone, no one else feels it the way you do. 
No one else’s hot tears run down your cheeks. 
No one else knows how you look for that smile, or reach for that hand in the night, under the covers, 
	only to find the absence and the ache. 
This ache, this one, is yours.

And maybe it doesn’t help right now, 
	(but trust me, it doesn’t hurt) to remember that every heart will hurt. 
Every beating heart, somewhere and sometime, aches. 
	In this you are not alone. In this we are all, all of us, connected.  
And there’s no point in comparing our bruises, our wounds, our losses. 
Because it’s not the number of scars that mark us or make us;
	the wounds themselves are the healing, 
		the opening, the beginning 
			and fullness of compassion.

Your aching is yours, 
	yours alone. 
And it is the aching of the world, 
	and you’ll see it reflected everywhere, everywhere,
			everywhere in this world of beauty and brokenness.

Be gentle, 
	please be gentle, with your pain. Be kind to this heart of yours. 
It’s been through so much, 
	and there’s more to come, of course, 
		because life is always being born 
		and always being broken 
		and loss is inevitable. 

The ache is born from love. 
And the love can hold the ache. 
         And there will be more room, more room, more room
                   for more.

(Trust me on this, because it’s hard to swallow, isn’t it?)

And - one more thing - and this is important:
     Here's what I know, what I know now... after these long months ....
         You won't always feel the way you feel right now.
               There will be light
                         There will be laughter
         Your heart - the scars, the cracks - this is where the light gets in. 
                 (Mr. Cohen was right).
 You know how to love, you still know. You have so much to give, to receive -
            and this, this, this is life
                   and it is yours, my dear, to live.