Heart's Music

My heart sounds like a washing machine. I have what they call a heart murmur, an irregular heartbeat. I've been that way since the day I was born. Doctors and nurses who are not familiar with my condition are amazed and terrified the first time they hear it. Your Grammy used to love to listen to it with her stethoscope because of its strange rhythm. My heart is different, but it is consistent: consistently different.

Because of my condition, hearts have always fascinated me: the steady thump of a muscle pumping blood through the body, never faltering until the end. Such a small but constant occurrence to make such an amazing and complex phenomenon possible: Life.

Yes, I have always found the heart to be an amazing part of anatomy. The function of the heart is such a neat and essential ingredient in the recipe of human existence. Then, one week ago today, the heart found new meaning with me. It was no longer simply an amazing muscle that provided life. I know now that one cannot read a definition and have a complete understanding of what the heart is. For me, on Friday, May 13, 2011, the heart became a musical instrument capable of tunes foreign to my ears, producing the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. The heart, YOUR heart, played for me the melody of your life, and now, I know music.

~ “And that’s your baby’s heartbeat, strong and perfect,” the doctor announced.

As I lay there, head turned to the side, watching the screen that was featuring my child, tears streamed from the corners of my eyes. The struggle to look at you, on my right, or your daddy, on my left, was giving me whip lash. I could only take my eyes from you to look at his face and vice versa. While I cried, he smiled. He has such a beautiful smile. Between the sight and sound of your fluttering heart and the sight of your father’s happiness, my senses were overwhelmed. Bliss was all I knew.

It didn’t last long. Well, the bliss is still with me because you are still with me, but our first glimpse at you was over and done with much too soon, and let me tell you, I could have stayed there and listened for hours. But within minutes we were out the door, admiring your first picture and going on and on about how awesome our baby was. ~

I love the sound of the ocean. I love to hear children laughing. I love to listen to football games on Saturday mornings as I’m waking up from sleeping in. The sound of my mother’s voice soothes me while the sound of your daddy’s voice brings me joy. Church bells, hymns sung on Sunday mornings, glasses ringing after a toast, champagne corks popping, Christmas music, and the crackle of campfires - all of these sounds I love to hear. But there is one sound incomparable to all others, and though I look forward to hearing it again…and again, and again, I will never again hear it for the first time.

The first time I heard the thrum and swish of your heartbeat was when I realized the beauty of sound.