half-hearted.

I've been thinking a lot about the heart. We use it to describe so many things that are so important to us. It's responsible for keeping us alive and sometimes it feels like it's killing us.
I have a nephew who was born with only half of his. With that half, he has brought more fear, hope, tears, laughter and joy into my life than anyone ever will.
After about a four year break, we're preparing for his third heart surgery in the coming months. Something that has been looming at us as soon as the first two were far enough in the past. Since then we've gotten to meet this ferocious, larger than life child that sometimes just has to catch his breath to keep going. He has surpassed all dreams and suppressed almost all of our fears.
Until we finally got to see his heart a few weeks ago.
The pictures of it just weren't what we thought. He has complications we never really saw coming. It was a blow we hadn't braced for.
Only, I did. I had to. I watched as my sister took in the news, only slightly losing a bit of her posture and some of the color from her face. She stayed engaged and curious and I just watched everyone. The surgeons face as he explained the issues. Each person on the team behind him as their eyes darted to my sister to see how she was accepting what she just heard. Only using their eyes to really understand what I was hearing and not allowing myself for one second to show it.
After the room cleared, we cleared it. Packing up my nephew maybe a little bit more carefully than we would've before. They drove off to Louisiana, I drove to my side of town.
Just like before with his diagnosis I could not allow myself to be anything but positive even though no one was looking. I remember weeping in my bed at the news of what was to come. Knowing just how much I already loved my other nephew and not knowing if I would be able to bear the weight of what could come if I lost the second one. But, only to myself, never to my sister. I comforted myself by focusing on images of my nephews playing and growing and living life just as they should and I have been given a gift of seeing it all come true. Better than I dreamed.
The scary days in-between his birth and the recovery from his first two heart surgeries seem like they never even happened. The only reminder that his heart isn't as big as it should be come when he gives himself a quick time out or you notice that his lips, fingers and toes are just a little bit blue. They all can quickly be overlooked. The scar has faded.
I had forgotten until I couldn't anymore.
Aiden's story gets told as a story of hope and a couple weeks ago, a friend let me know she had heard it and she was thinking about us. I went back and relived his story through the pictures and facts of what all had happened and I came unglued.
The flood gates opened and there was no way for me to recover. All of the fear coming back, but now knowing what his face looks like, what his smile looks like, what his heartbeat feels like, what his laugh sounds like and debilitated by the fear that there could come a day I won't be able to see, hear or feel any of that.
My eyes were swollen. My chest was tight. My jaw was locked. My heart was broken.
I let it all just come out of me. Only to myself until my sister called and she knew better.
It was a release I had locked up so tightly and buried that I didn't realize until the knot came loose that I had numbed myself to life. I couldn't feel anything because I was putting everything into not feeling that. Protecting myself from it. Preventing myself from feeling it. Clinging on to hope so tightly my knuckles were white. I couldn't do it anymore and I shouldn't.
I let it all just come out of me. Only to myself until my sister called and she knew better.
She told me while his surgeon does know the anatomy of his heart, he doesn't know the spirit of it. The heart is so much bigger than its chambers, even if it's missing some. It's function keeps us alive, but it is also the innermost part of who we are. Both are what keeps us living and makes it worth taking that next breath.
Life sits on the cliff of fear and hope. It's constantly just teetering on the edge. Our hearts skip a beat no matter if we're overwhelmed or overjoyed. It keeps us fighting for more and sometimes holds us back from falling. It keeps beating and we keep going, and so will Aiden.
I can see it now.