The heart

[.Marik]

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What is the heart?

For some of us, it's an organ. For others, it's the well of our feelings; our emotions.

The heart is considered an important part of practically every culture; it's significance in resembling symbolism is second to none.

Now let me give you a recollection of my day, as I wondered the streets homeless for 6 hours.

After getting kicked out of my foster home for refusing to back down in an argument, I began pondering to myself, caught up in my thoughts as everyone else smoked, drank, and partied on Canada Day.

Being sober [regrettably so] I walked for a few hours in the dark until I came across a cemetary.

Cemetaries are beautiful. The feeling of absolute peace, tranquility, and quiet eerily called my name as I escaped the hustle and bustle of my loud, obnoxious, and polluted city.

After slipping through the fence, I peered around at the tombstones. This was a seemingly traditional and orthodox Christian burial grounds, with psalms and proverbs rested across these slabs of limestone and gravel.

Reading a lot of names, and dates of deaths, a sudden realization hit me.

A lot of the spouses, [as in almost every single one] died within a year of each other. The children, if one died young, so did the other. It's startling how much you can find out about a particular family just by visiting their resting places; the pain they've endured. Maybe it's my scizophrenic state beginning to deteriorate, but I started to see them. No, not physically, but spiritually, as if they were talking to me.

What could this mean? Do husbands and wives die because of "broken hearts?" It's as if souls become one; bound together by love, a chemistry that's far more beautiful and complicated than any scientific or religious debate could ever hope to muster. When that's broken, the other afflicted person loses a part of them; and their will to live.

That's how I spent my national holiday, sitting in a cemetary contemplating how these people lived, died, and the unbreakable bond of real love.

I'm glad it happened. I wouldn't have wanted to do anything else.

Can hearts break? Of course they can. But what about these bonds that form as a result?

Why did all these couples die immediately after one another?

What is it? The heart? What is it capable of?

 

[t3h Icy]

For couples that stay together most of their lives, death of a spouse is brutal.

And to add to your findings, my Grandfather died several years ago after my Grandmother did a year before him. They were together for 49 years.

Really interesting observation.

 

[Purtle]

I have heard/observed that man older couples, if one spouse dies, the other usually dies within a year or two.

Sort a beautiful, yet sad, thing.

 

[Jim Morrison]

My grandfather was healthy and died within less than a year after my grandmothers' death. I do believe in it.

 

[StealthyGunnar]

The heart is an organ. The brain controls emotions and functions.

My theory is that people/spouses die soon after the other because:
1) The other has nothing left to live for.
2) The living is "ready" to die.

Our emotions to drive us to weird, strange, and amazing things - some understandable and others not.

 

[-_skinny_-]

my neighbor is 92 and his wife died about a year ago after being married for about 60 or so years. he hasnt been the same. what he and his wife had was true love. i always saw them holding hands when they sat on theyr porch. he dsnt go out there anymore...
although i think hes been hocking up with another naighbor lol
even old ppl hav sex, its not gross, just really awkward to think about lol.

 

[StealthyGunnar]

my neighbor is 92 and his wife died about a year ago after being married for about 60 or so years. he hasnt been the same. what he and his wife had was true love. i always saw them holding hands when they sat on theyr porch. he dsnt go out there anymore...
although i think hes been hocking up with another naighbor lol
even old ppl hav sex, its not gross, just really awkward to think about lol.

Based on what you just said and looking at your avatar... That's awkward.

But srsly, the MIND is capable of many mysterious things.

 

[.Marik]

The heart is an organ. The brain controls emotions and functions.

My theory is that people/spouses die soon after the other because:
1) The other has nothing left to live for.
2) The living is "ready" to die.

Our emotions to drive us to weird, strange, and amazing things - some understandable and others not.

I think you missed the entire point of my blog.

Sure, the brain controls thought processes, but that's not what I'm getting at.

Why do you think the term "broken hearts" exists?

As I said before, the heart is widespread in the teachings of symbolism in practically every culture.

Why do you think that is? Of course it's an organ, but is it just limited to that?

 

[Teran]

Well people thought the heart was our core because they didn't understand organs. You stop the heart and the person shuts down. The constant beating is like a really obvious symbol of a life force.

Also most of the time when you feel something, chemicals get released which affect heart rate, the fact that they felt their emotions physically in their chest was more of an indication of the heart being the emotional core.

The heart now exists as a concept, encapsulating everything from our nature as a person to our emotions.

Kinda cute.

As a concept it'll never die, it's deeply ingrained in our culture. :3

 

[.Marik]

Well people thought the heart was our core because they didn't understand organs. You stop the heart and the person shuts down. The constant beating is like a really obvious symbol of a life force.

Also most of the time when you feel something, chemicals get released which affect heart rate, the fact that they felt their emotions physically in their chest was more of an indication of the heart being the emotional core.

The heart now exists as a concept, encapsulating everything from our nature as a person to our emotions.

Kinda cute.

As a concept it'll never die, it's deeply ingrained in our culture. :3

Nail on the head. But does the heart affect our life expectancy?

All of these tombstones stated the same thing. Couples all died within a year of each other, as if their hearts were broken.

Coincidence?

 

[-_skinny_-]

Nail on the head. But does the heart affect our life expectancy?

yeah, if ur hart stops you die

 

[.Marik]

yeah, if ur hart stops you die

Not the point. Once again.

The majority of you aren't understanding anything I'm trying to say.

If you become heartbroken because of the recent death of a loved spouse, does that affect you? By the heart "affecting" us, I don't mean shutting our bodies down physically, I mean terminating our will to live, both emotionally and in a way, physically. [Resulting in death.]

Even members who have posted in this thread proved to me it wasn't mere coincidence.

There's a pattern here, the odds are overwhelming.

 

[-_skinny_-]

yea sorry i was trollin lol

i understand what you mean, like if ur significant other dies, part of you dies with them. the "hart broken" part is just the feeling of it hitting you all at once, that ur not gonna b able to see, hear, feel, or talk to that person ever again. its a physical reaction to depression, like how anger makes your blood pressure skyrocket and you literally see red (increased blood flow to the eyes), and being scared actually makes the brain act differently in a way that it tries to make the fear go away in a fearfull situation that if you see something it makes it unexplainably funny (thats why zombies and monsters and brutal crap are funny wen ur high). anyways back to my point, the hart breaking is a physical response to u losing the most important person and thus losing ur will to live... did that help? idk lol i tried to explain

 

[.Marik]

The physical, scientific aspects of being "heartbroken" are fairly easy enough to understand.

However, what about the emotional bonds that form with a loved one, and the consequences of them breaking?

That's the more important, pressing question here.

 

[Delta-cod]

It could just be a freak coincidence. For example, BOTH of my grandmothers have been living for quite a while despite their husbands dying many years ago, although one just died recently.

Of course, the death of a loved one affects you. They were a large part of your life, and when they die, that part of you is gone.

 

[.Marik]

Freak coincidence?

All of these tombstones told the same story. It's not coincidence.

 

[StealthyGunnar]

I think you missed the entire point of my blog.

Sure, the brain controls thought processes, but that's not what I'm getting at.

Why do you think the term "broken hearts" exists?

As I said before, the heart is widespread in the teachings of symbolism in practically every culture.

Why do you think that is? Of course it's an organ, but is it just limited to that?

Yes I'm sure that one could be hurt so much as to have a broken heart, but as to being more than just an organ that pumps blood through the body, I don't know. Like I said, humans are capable of many weird, strange and amazing things.

And yes, I believe that being heart broken does effect health. When one makes an emotional bond with someone, it gets really hard to let them go. And I believe that being heart broken could drive them to death. The thought of not being able to be with the one you love could drive someone to do this.

 

[.Marik]

Yes I'm sure that one could be hurt so much as to have a broken heart, but as to being more than just an organ that pumps blood through the body, I don't know. Like I said, humans are capable of many weird, strange and amazing things.

And yes, I believe that being heart broken does effect health. When one makes an emotional bond with someone, it gets really hard to let them go. And I believe that being heart broken could drive them to death. The thought of not being able to be with the one you love could drive someone to do this.

That makes sense.

For the record, we all understand the basic principles behind emotional conflict and how it affects the heart.

Normally, when a loved one dies, it produces stress which strains the heart physically.

But, emotionally, I think it runs much deeper than an organ beginning to expire.

I think for now, we can't begin to comprehend or understand the more beautiful; albeit complicated, aspects of life.

Do people just shrivel up and die because of shattered souls and obsolute sadness?

Besides the stress that is produced, the emotional state is almost completely unrelated to the physical state and structure of the heart.

You can all imagine the questions I pondered that night, alone in a cemetary.

 

[Fatmanonice]

I suppose it really depends on the relationship. My grandmother died about 6 years ago and my grandfather is still alive. The day of the funeral, he was devestated. It took him nearly two hours to get ready because for about an hour he couldn't even feel the left side of his body. The paramedics came and they found out that he wasn't having a stroke, he was simply that stressed out by loosing his wife of over 60 years. At the funeral, he broke down in front of my grandmother's casket. It will forever be ingrained on my memory because here was a man who in WWII basically cleaned up battlefields with little more than a bucket and a sponge who never suffered any form of PMD, fall to his knees and cry in his hands. He now lives alone with a small dog and my aunt comes to visit him on a fairly regular basis. He still runs 2-4 miles everyday despite being in his late 80's.

My grandmother has a similar story. Her husband died about 4 years ago, on the year of their 50th wedding anniversary. She now lives about 5 minutes away from my parent's house and my aunt and we see her on a regular basis. If anything, she seems liberated now that my grandfather is gone. He could be loving but when my mom was a kid he was very abusive verbally to her, her four siblings, and my grandmother. Loud, brash, demanding, racist; my grandfather didn't start to change for the better until the early 80's, shortly after his first grandchild was born. He was still all of the above until he died but the grandkids never saw the tyrant that our parents grew up with.

Both my dad's mother and my mom's father had similar personalities. They were loud bigots who kept the other spouse under their thumb. My grandmother lost her edge when she started to show the first sign of cancer in the mid 80's so I never got to see the fearsome woman who had her husband and kids henpecked. My grandfather, as I said above, never entirely lost his and sometimes you could see the traits of those days when my mom legitimately feared him.

I mention this because I believe both of them felt relief after their spouse was gone. For my grandfather, he had to take care of her in her condition since the mid 80's. For my grandmother, my grandfather was exceedingly obese which led to plenty of problems on its own. My grandmother died weighing about 80 pounds, my grandfather about 450. My grandmother mentions how she said in the little town that they lived in for my grandfather's sake despite having virtually no friends and being about 3 hours away from her kids. My grandfather doesn't talk about my grandmother. All I've ever heard about her is from my Dad, my Mom, and my Dad's sisters. Since my grandfather's death, my grandmother has really opened up as a person and has even taken in a lot of travel, something she never did when he was alive. My grandfather has told my Dad that he doesn't feel like he has a purpose anymore but he refuses to fall into depression because of it and wants to live out the rest of his life quietly.

Again, I believe it has to do with what made up that relationship and the person's will to live without their spouse. I don't believe "dying of a broken heart" is a natural thing and is forced if anything else. I can understand it though. If your life revolves around the happiness of another person, your purpose dies with them. Without purpose, where does that leave you? I know that it's a common trait amongst seniors that they don't feel like they have any use to society as it so I believe this helps some justify allowing themselves to get so distraut that it ends up killing them. In the end, I suppose it's the attitude you take and the beliefs you have regarding life.