Eleven ounces and no larger than a clenched fist. In my own case, shifted to the left, post lobectomy. When I roll over I can feel it, right there, underneath my breast. Beating, beating, beating.
Blood in, blood out. Breath in, breath out. Pumping, inhaling, exhaling. Pulsing; without pause.
Our little workhorses, heart and lungs. Flesh, muscle, vapor, fluid.
Animated tissue that is our emotional core. Breath can be taken away, a heart broken; we feel it right here, in our chest.
Today, a heaviness. The weight of those who have been traveling the same path but for whom the journey has now ended. Called home, as it were.
I ponder the possibility that my weighty heart is in stark contrast to theirs, which is now light. That I am holding them here, in my heart yet, but that dying is a letting go. Maybe even a sort of euphoria.
An end to pain but also a new beginning. A rolling back into the scrum that is all of life. Unbound. Unburdened.
But always loved.
life and breath: outliving lung cancer 