“Gonna hear the beat-heart.” When my daughter was about one and a half years old she scurried ahead of me into the obstetrician’s office with a snack baggie of teddy grahams and all the determination she could muster to listen to the beat of her not-yet-born brother’s heart. An ultrasound is a useful tool to access the pulse of life and she was intent to hear that beautiful sound.
Years later, I walked into the main office of an elementary school and immediately noticed a barrage of fine tip markers splayed out over the entire office floor. There must have been 150 markers of assorted colors strewn everywhere. Without giving it a moment’s thought, I bent down and started to pick up all those colorful slender sticks in an effort to help. “Leave those there,” ordered the school secretary, “Zachary must pick those up as soon as the principal gets here.”
The cloud of stormy angst looming across the secretary’s face was downright frightening as she signaled in the direction of a young boy waiting in a chair. In the meantime, the older brother (all of about second grade) saw his sibling sitting in the office through the window of the hallway and immediately entered the room to stand by his brother’s side. Then he gingerly wrapped his older-brother-arm around the younger’s shoulder, the notch of his inclusive elbow drawing his young brother close at the neck as he peered into the glum face.
“Tell me all about it.”
His intonation of the word all gently rolled forth in the flow of three exaggerated and elongated syllables all strung together as one.
What is it about heartbeats? Who knows what makes our hearts flutter, sputter, leap, and spin? Minus the frenzy of the world’s quick misinterpretation and judgement, wouldn’t it be extraordinary to simply understand the innermost life-beat of another heart, and in turn, have one’s own heart truly understood? Wouldn’t it be wonderful, ultrasounds aside, if the delivered message in all daily encounters authenticated, “Let me hear your beat-heart and tell me all-all-all about it.”
One thing I believe completely is that the human heart remains the human heart …
—Geraldine Brooks
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Thanks for stopping by. ♥