How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?

Last night as I went to sleep a whole monologue presented itself to me about how broken hearts affect us. I don’t know if I can reconstruct it here, but will try. The essence of the message concerned my Mother. I wondered, how could she reach nearly 100 years of age with a heart that had been broken so many times all the way from her childhood through the raising of her children and the rejection of her by them. It must have included how she felt realizing that her own acid tongue had hurt others through the years, but also the disappointment in trying to do the right things. The last year of her life was a gradual fading away of all contact with the life she had led and the hopes she had held.

The Bee Gees wrote the song below in 1971 for Andy Williams. The group had gotten back together after a split. He turned it down and they recorded it themselves. It was a number one hit single.

How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?

I can think of younger days when living for my life

Was everything a man could want to do

I could never see tomorrow, but I was never told about the sorrow.

And how can you mend a broken heart?

How can you stop the rain from falling down?

How can you stop the sun from shining?

What makes the world go round?

How can you mend this broken man?

How can a loser ever win?

Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again.

I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees

And misty memories of days gone by

We could never see tomorrow, no one said a word about the sorrow.

And how can you mend a broken heart?

How can you stop the rain from falling down?

How can you stop the sun from shining?

What makes the world go round?

How can you mend this broken man?

How can a loser ever win?

Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again.

This song seems to sum up the emotions I felt as I reviewed the monologue from last night. For some time now I have been examining my own broken heart without being able to move from the focus on the “broken” part. In my head I certainly know better. I know I can’t continue in these feelings. I know something can be done about them. I also know I am far from the ability to see any reason to try. I really want nothing more than to be able to fade from this existence without further hurt. I guess this proves that I am the passive-aggressive person I have been accused of being.

I am taking a risk in sharing these deep personal feelings. I know that some will fear that I am going to take some drastic action. I assure you, I AM NOT. Others may just think I am wrapped up in self-pity—“poor me”--about things that have gone awry in my life and in my relationships. Some of you will be able to penetrate the superficial interpretations and get to the heart of the matter. I leave you on your own in this regard.

I am experiencing a devastating sorrow, an impossible depth of regret and an absolute aloneness. This is not because there are not people in my life for whom I care deeply and who care for and about me. It is because those whom I have loved the most and depended upon the most are no longer in my life. In that sense, I have already faded away from this life. I am already in that transitional stage between the real living and growing as a person and the dying to this world in order to move on to Life’s next experience for me. I am not as prepared for this change as I once thought I was. I am not afraid of the change, for I still believe too deeply in the eternality of Life to worry about what is next. And, after all, what importance is there to the “things” of this physical existence when I am no longer here?

Yet I cannot completely shake the notion of heritage, the idea that there are those who carry the memory and the influence of my life in some way. It seems clear to me that I no longer have the heritage I once cherished. I am not an extraordinary person, though I have been successful in my career of choice and in other endeavors that held meaning for me. I have pretty much lived my life my way. Therein, of course, lies the problem! In my effort to be who I am, I perhaps did not give enough of myself to those who joined me along the path—my significant others and my children. I understand that my broken heart has been earned by my actions, or lack of them. That is where the regret comes in. Sometimes in life we are fortunate enough to get “do-overs.” Sometimes we do not.

As long as I am in this life, I will do my best to live it and to find new adventures and new people with whom to enjoy them. Optimism is too deeply implanted within me to choose any other course. I still believe that no matter how dark or long the tunnel, it is after all, only a tunnel, not a dead-end cave. The time it takes to go through it is up to me. I will mend my broken heart!