What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted?

I have a friend who is going through a rough time right now.  Her situation brought up a lot of memories for me and I started remembering my own heartbreaks - the tears, the physical pain that goes along with it, the ache you feel for the person you've lost, and finally, the healing and moving on.  We've all had our hearts broken.  Some are because of loves lost to a breakup, some are because of losing loved ones to death.  No matter the cause, the pain is real and you have to feel it - really feel it - to begin to heal.

The heart is an amazing thing.  It's capable of producing so much love and so much pain at the same time.  It can be shattered into what seems like a million pieces and then slowly put all of those pieces back together and heal itself.  It miraculously puts itself back together piece by piece and winds up being even bigger than it was before.  Why is that?  Maybe it's because heartbreak allows us to feel compassion.  We hurt when our friends and family hurt because we know how it feels.  So our hearts ache for their hearts when they break.  Maybe it's because you have to know pain to truly know love.  Maybe it's both.  Maybe it's some other reason entirely that we aren't meant to understand.  Whatever the reason, we pick ourselves up and we move on, one step at a time, one breath at a time.  We cry, we hurt, we ask why, and then we get over it. Some wounds never completely heal, but they get less painful over time.  Each heartbreak makes us who we are and each heartbreak leaves its own mark on our lives.  Some even teach us lessons, even though we may not understand the lesson until much later. 

I don't think heartbreak is meant to be a punishment.  It's just a form of grieving over a loss, whether physical or emotional.  A loss is there and it must be grieved.  There is an emptiness inside.  A hole where something used to be.  And, when we're ready, that hole will be filled.  Maybe not completely filled, because I believe that we lose a little bit of ourselves when we lose someone we love, but filled with enough of something else to make it okay again. 

So to my friend, allow yourself to cry and know that others are crying with you.  And some day, you will be the one crying, not because your heart is broken but because a friend's heart is broken and you know how that feels.  And you will be there to pick her up just like she picked you up.  This too shall pass....well maybe not pass but recede...ebb and flow.  A friend of mine told me that one time when my heart was broken and now I'm passing it along.  Just know that your heart will heal and you will love again....someday...with a bigger and stronger heart than you had before.