The heart is an incredible organ. It’s a life force! On an average day, it will beat 115,000 times, it will even continue to beat after it’s been disconnected with the body! It’s the first sound a baby hears as it’s growing inside his or her mother’s tummy. It’s not that big really, roughly the size of an adult’s fist. Although it’s never been proven, the heart has a memory too. Heart transplant patients have woken up from surgery and have craved foods that beforehand they had not liked, only to find out later that the person who donated the heart loved whatever it was the donor-recipient was now craving! As a student nurse, one of the most amazing operations I scrubbed in on was an oesophagectomy, because from a physiology and anatomy perspective it was truly amazing seeing the heart doing its thing.  Way back then we were taught that the sound we had to listen for if we were checking someone’s blood pressure or listening to the heart was a “la-dub”.

La-Dub – It’s the flutter of my heart when a good looking man who told me he was the Mayor of Boorowa asked me what my name was. The flutter of my heart every morning without fail from day one when he would ring at morning smoko to say good morning, or at least every day but one.  The flutter of my heart when he took my hand for the first time or had our first kiss. It was the flutter of my heart on those nights when he was in Boorowa, and I was in Canberra, and closet romantic that he was, he would remind me that even though we were apart, we could both look up and see the same Southern Cross or Saucepan. The flutter of my heart when he would say “Love you girl”, or call me by his pet name for me. The flutter of my heart when he would show me he loved me through the little things like offering me my preference when there was a choice of two dishes or offering to cook tea or get takeaway when he knew I’d had a rough day. The flutter of my heart when he would fiercely protect me, making me feel bulletproof because no matter what he was on my side. It was the flutter of my heart, all these years later, when I would hear his ute pull into the driveway or the way he could look as gorgeous in a singlet and footy shorts as he could in a three-piece suit!

La-Dub – The memories my heart holds and will forever treasure almost like it’s inscribed on the very walls of my heart. Memories of his big calloused hands which would always reach for mine when we were out together. Or the scruffy face that would kiss me on the head before he went to work. Memories of the big strong arms that would come over my shoulder to give me a hug while I was cooking so he could stick his fingers into whatever I was making for a taste. The coffee he bought me every Sunday morning from Maccas, knowing what a coffee snob I am and didn’t want me to have to drink instant.  The silly car dancing he would do, singing the wrong lyrics to the songs on the radio, partly because he really didn’t know the lyrics but mostly to get a giggle out of Georgia.

It’s memories of the looks we exchanged which no one else would notice but would speak volumes. The inside jokes that I would pretend were really lame but pretend so unconvincingly that he would tell me he was the funniest man I knew, and he was right. The hundred things he did that drove me nuts, the million things that made me love him in spite of those things. Memories of his favourite aftershave, the way my head fit so comfortably on his shoulder when we would curl up on the lounge. Memories of the way his fat fingers would wipe away my tears, tears that seem so few in comparison to the rivers I’ve cried since he’s gone and not there to wipe them away!

La-dub – It’s an actual, physical, continual almost overwhelming heartache for all of the things that will no longer be. The heartache of watching his ute and our camper drive away, even though I know he would have been happy to see them go to good people. The heartache of trips we planned but never took. Afternoons we spent mapping a plan through the centre of Australia and around Tasmania, Chris bragging about how good it was that he had talked me into buying the Camper. Nights, when I listened to his pie in the sky, plans to take a year off to travel around Australia, secretly hoping we’d find a way to pull it off.

Heartache over things he’s already missed in the not quite six months since he left us – birthdays, our anniversary, Father’s Day, our daughter’s graduation from Primary School, Christmas, New Years, our usual Christmas holiday down the coast, our daughters first day of High School…….  Heartache for all of the things he’ll miss in the months and years to come – birthdays, anniversaries, Georgie’s graduation from High School, University, all of the kid’s weddings, walking Georgia down the aisle, grandkids, long days fishing when he eventually retired…… It’s even heartache for the stuff that, to most, would seem silly but are things that break my heart because Chris isn’t not here to experience them with me – pacing the floor late into the night waiting for Georgia to get home after curfew, retelling horror stories of narrow escapes as we teach Georgia to drive, worrying together about the kids, being proud of their accomplishments, laughing at each other, with each other.

La-dub – It’s shock. Not the sort of shock that jolts your heart back to life but the sort of shock that damages your heart for life, knowing that no matter how hard you try, it will never be the same again. The shock of the phone call that turned my world upside down – shattering news that my husband had died of a heart attack at just 40 years of age. The shock of watching the face of a beautiful 11 year old crumble as she tried to come to grips with the fact that her dad and biggest cheer squad wouldn’t be around anymore to pick her up from tennis or tuck her into bed or kiss her goodnight. The shock of having to call family and friends and tell them the devastating news and listen to the initial disbelief and then grief on the other end of the line. The shock of planning the funeral for a man who had such a big personality that the hole he left will never be able to be filled.

The shock in the days and weeks that followed, going to the places we once went together, desperately searching the crowd for Chris’s face because my heart kept telling my head that it must be all a big mistake and if I look hard enough I’ll find him, all rationality lost in the overwhelming grief. The shock in the months since when I think I see him in a crowd or whip around when I think I hear his voice or laugh. The shock that compounds at the end of every day because it’s another day without him, the reality still too painful and too hard to believe.

I have been told that having a broken heart is possible both physically and figuratively. Broken heart syndrome is caused by a rush of stress hormones from an emotional and/or stressful event. It’s my new reality and this what has become as constant and unalterable as the la-dub rhythm of my heart? La-dub, he’s not here! La-dub, he’s not coming back! La-dub, he’s not here! La-dub, he’s not coming back!

Always and forever……