Heart Matters

Today I got to teach Chloe where her heart resides.

I know my days are numbered with her. I could get out a calendar and have a pretty good estimate of the Thursdays I have left with her. It’s in the ballpark of a year. When her mom will move to the Bangor area for school and better job opportunities and childcare. Closer to her sister and mother. But that would take away the delight in the mystery. I prefer it to be like savoring a candy bar by taking tiny bites with her and letting the chocolate melt in our mouths. I don’t need to count the bites. I know the candy bar will be gone soon enough.

She placed the heart-shaped cookie-cutter on her 3-and-a-half-year-old belly. “This Is where my heart lives Kafrin,” half showing me and half asking.

My brain paused for a heartbeat wondering what she meant. Then I got it. She was recalling an earlier conversation we had in the car. The kind that wafts in the air space of a moving vehicle where questions, responses to questions, observations of what's outside the car passing by on the left or the right, and singing songs bounce to and from the front and back seats. For the life of me, I can't recall what organ we were discussing, but I know I was taking the opportunity to tell her there are many organs in the belly. From the no response, I figured all that may have been too much information to process. To my delight, what she gleaned from that science lesson was, the heart resides in the belly, too.

So now that we are face-to-face, I explain to her she has a chest cavity and belly cavity. “Cavity” is an entirely new word and I wonder if I need to water it down. But she allows it to land wherever it does without question. She is more concerned about the placement of the heart-shaped cookie cutter on her body. “Under my boobie Kafrin?”

I am certain my prim and proper Catholic upbringing would have never allowed my 3 and half-year-old self to know, nor utter the word “boobie”, but I let it continue to flow in the conversation rather than begin to unpack that. Besides, to her, it’s just a body part, as innocent as her adorable little toes.

I move her cookie cutter to the left of her chest. "Right there, Chloe."

It’s the next morning now. Something has reminded me of hearts and cavities as I am walking down my hallway to resume my morning reading with my re-heated cup of coffee. And the understanding that I was able to drop a bit of knowledge into that sweet brain of hers. How lucky for me, that I am her “Kafrin.” That lady she knew when she was little, who taught her where her heart is in her body.

She is my step-granddaughter. My late husband's granddaughter. Who only knew her for the nine months she was in utero, and six months out. This relationship, to her mother and me, is a broken heart glyph all bandaged up. Leaks now and then. Mostly we have it under control of how to keep it from bleeding. It is one of the unspoken bonds Chloe’s mom and I share. “Pampy lives in heaven.” We have conversations like this a lot, now with the same ease of talking about where the cookie-cutter heart goes on her body.