Letter To My Heart

From the time I was born, you carried me through life’s ever-changing world. You beamed with hope so bright it could illuminate the darkest corners. Back then, life stretched before us like an endless summer day, and love felt as infinite as the sky above.

As the years unfurled like pages in a well-worn book, I asked so much of you. I whispered, “Trust again,” when trust seemed foolish. “Give more,” when your reserves felt empty. “Believe in people,” when people had shown you their shadows. And you, oh, my faithful heart, you did. Again, and again, and again. Even when love was a one-way street, even when disappointments carved their names into your tender walls, you kept beating that steady rhythm of hope. You kept giving until giving became your prayer.

There have been losses that nearly brought time to a standstill. Heartbreaks that left you gasping for air. Friendships that didn’t just fade, they vanished like mirages, leaving you reaching for ghosts. Trust that didn’t just break, it shattered into pieces so small I’m still finding fragments in unexpected moments.

And then came the earthquakes, the losses that changed everything. My Mom, Margie, was known for breaking barriers for other women to follow, whose laughter lived in every room long after she left them. My Grandmom Lela, who taught you that strength and softness could dance together. My sister Rose, who knew all your secrets and loved you anyway. My brother Jimmy, whose absence still echoes inside you. Each goodbye left you raw and reeling, like a bird learning to fly with broken wings. Yet somehow, you never forgot how to soar.

You carried me through the wreckage of three marriages. Through the devastating silence of burying two husbands, watching love literally disappear before your eyes. Through the complicated grief of divorce, where love doesn’t die but transforms into something unrecognizable. And that devastating day when I held my beloved Moko as the vet’s gentle hands stilled her suffering heart forever, when that malignant tumor stole not just her life but a piece of your very soul.

Life hasn’t just tested you, dear heart, it has put you through fire, flood, and earthquake. It has demanded everything and then asked for more. In those trials, in those moments when breaking seemed easier than bending, you discovered something extraordinary: you are not the same tender, trusting heart you once were. You’ve grown armor made of wisdom; strength forged in the furnace of experience. You’re no longer that carefree heart of childhood. Now you are seventy-nine years old, weathered and wise, scarred and sacred.

My precious heart, I know you carry weariness like stones in your pockets some days. I know the weight of memory can feel crushing, and there are moments when the old enthusiasm feels as distant as childhood summers. I see how you hesitate sometimes, how you measure trust in smaller portions now, how you guard your hope more carefully.

But look what you’ve become. Even with all the scars mapping your surface like constellations, even with the struggles that have aged you beyond your years, you are still here. Still beating. Still believing. Still you. You haven’t just survived; you’ve become something magnificent, a heart that knows the true meaning of resilience, the real depth of love, the authentic power of endurance.

And because you refused to surrender, because you chose to keep beating through every storm, because of you, my beautiful, battered, brilliant heart…so am I.

Bobbie Bennett