When my Dadi ma died (my dad’s mother) I asked him why. He said she died of a broken heart.
I was about 7 years old.
I remember thinking “Can that really happen?” “Can your heart just break?” “How does that happen?!”
As a little girl I wondered what actually physically happens to cause one’s heart to break. Did I have to worry that my heart would just break one day? Would it happen on my way to school? While playing at recess? At a sleepover?
Is there an expiration date on all hearts and some just fall apart?
My dad never strayed from the reason for how my Dadi ma died.
It was a broken heart. Full stop.
As I grew older and other friend’s grandparents died I would find out their grandparents had died of medical causes that I understood, but no one else’s grandparent had died of a broken heart.
As a teenager I learned more about the incredibly difficult life my Dadi ma experienced, having had to leave Africa – where her family had lived for generations – without any choice, a challenging marriage, little autonomy and decision making about her life, the early death of her only daughter, the death of her grandchild and the death of a son later in life, and finally the betrayals by some of her sons that left her emotionally wrecked.
All of these impacts – psychological, mental and emotional – were attacks on her spirit and soul.
But dying from it? Could someone literally die from so much pain?
My family has a history of heart issues. I have an uncle who died at 40 of a heart attack, various uncles who had heart surgeries, a brother who had a massive heart attack at 44, a father and other brother who needed heart related medications and a mother who was rushed in and out of the ER for heart related issues. We even have a family cardiologist that we all go to – that we truly respect.
The heart has fascinated me for a long time.
Then I heard about “broken heart syndrome”. The Mayo Clinic describes the syndrome as follows:
“Broken heart syndrome is a temporary heart condition that’s often brought on by stressful situations, such as the death of a loved one. The condition can also be triggered by a serious physical illness or surgery. People with broken heart syndrome may have sudden chest pain or think they’re having a heart attack.”
And the American Heart Association writes:
“Broken heart syndrome, also called stress-induced cardiomyopathy or takotsubo cardiomyopathy, can strike even if you’re healthy. (Tako tsubo, by the way, are octopus traps that resemble the pot-like shape of the stricken heart.) Women are more likely than men to experience the sudden, intense chest pain — the reaction to a surge of stress hormones — that can be caused by an emotionally stressful event. It could be the death of a loved one or even a divorce, breakup or physical separation, betrayal or romantic rejection. It could even happen after a good shock (like winning the lottery.)”
The reality is that I knew my Dadi ma had a long history of fainting spells and that she had a combination of diabetic issues and heart issues. I knew logically there were medical factors for why she died. But as I grew up I could not dismiss the other non-medical factors that chipped away at her heart, that caused her heart distress and that made her heart weak and unable to sustain any further, loss and grief.
I did not understand the feeling of true adult heartbreak until I was in my 20’s; it knocked my more logically, head-centred personality to the floor.
It was an experience that, I think, has made me a better family law lawyer.
Heartbreak is something that all family law lawyers will encounter in their practice.
I expect the tears and upset in my initial consults with clients.
I know there will be silence and moments when it will be hard for clients to speak.
I appreciate that these feelings will appear in waves and that the story of breakdown will come in pieces and sometimes circle back and around. Life and matters of the heart are rarely linear like the structure of affidavits and legal arguments.
I know the law is only a small portion of what my clients will need to address in their lives post-separation and more critical things are often in play.
I know having a good support system in place will be essential for their healing and wellness through the legal process.
I tell them to breathe. I tell them often.
I remind them to do this when we enter the court room because it can feel like the air is slipping away.
Sometimes that’s all clients will remember. “I just need to breathe.”
Matters of heartbreak are complicated. They are not just about what happens in our head. Try as one might our bodies hold our emotions and pocket them in different areas.
Somewhere between 30% to 40% of patients who have had open heart surgery are recorded to experience depression or feelings similar to heartbreak.
This powerful muscular organ holds more than we know. When the heart is touched metaphorically or physically it is altered forever.
A broken heart can transform us all.