The Silent Tragedies of the Heart

Years ago, I would regularly step outside of church, walk up to the top of the neighboring parking deck, look out on the part of the city I could see, breathe and remember. Or rather breathe and mourn, as I later realized.

I don’t think I left that parking deck for a very long time. Physically, sure. Mentally, I lived lost in what used to be for two or three years before I finally walked back down the steps and into the present.

There’s something about facing “now” when you’ve known “then,” proven by letters I’ve written to my previously unbothered hope, requesting its return from an untimely and extended leave. I’m not anywhere close to where I used to be. Hope is present and able. But as steady as the beat that pumps life into my veins, resides the reality of the things that still break me.

I scroll through my contacts and remember deleting the numbers of people who are no longer living. I knock on doors of homes where I personally witnessed violence and loss, only to greet unfamiliar faces of new families who open those doors and address me like a stranger. I listen as people process their pain and am reminded of the things that I’ve lived through – the things that try to chase me back into darkness and those that molded my strength. In the middle of conversations, watching movies, eating lunch, going on walks or driving past a coffee shop, I am transported back to that rooftop without any warning at all. Then, as quickly as I left, I return, all in silence and none the wiser.

As someone who is striding towards a life of gratitude, I wonder if I should question what I’ve come to call the silent tragedies of the heart. Are these wounds? Can they heal? Should they heal?

Hold space. That’s what I hear when I consider these thoughts. Hold space for what happened and how it broke you.

We are not meant to live on rooftops but we are allowed to visit. Because holding space for what was honors who we were in that time and what we faced to bring us to where and who we are now. Holding space honors the love that was poured out, the chapters of stories that have continued on because of the part we played, and the wisdom gained not from theoretical conjecture but wholehearted trial and error.

The silent tragedies of the heart remind us that yesterday and today are inseparable. To live in the present we are not required to deny the past, but have permission to honor its request when it raises its hand to speak.