Capture My Heart With Chavin

No other symbol but a heart could be more synonymous with who I am as a person right now; touched by loss my heartstrings have been tugged and pulled more times than I can imagine. But then my heart has overflowed with love for all the support my fellow bloggers and friends have given out to me, offering me countless salves to soothe my wounded heart. They say loss changes you and they are right but not in the way you think, I always kept my emotions in check because I didn’t want people to know that I had worn my heart on my sleeve, that at heart I was secretly a softie. I wanted people to know me as the one who had her friends back and could withstand any storm that life threw at me but I am not, I am vulnerable and I do wear my heart on my sleeve. I am emotional and feel pain more than most people, when someone is upset I am upset with them and when I stumble my heart cracks. As a symbol of love, hearts are often synonymous or associated with the image of romanticism but for me I wear hearts because it reminds me that it is ok to be vulnerable but most of all it reminds me of the people I have lost along the way. They say that in death the heart is the last organ to shut down and its resilience and strength allows loved ones to capture a dying persons heart for the last time and I want to believe that it is true. I want to wear my Chavin Rose Gold Heart Bracelet with pride and capture the ‘living essence’ of my grandma and friend so that they may stand beside me and rejoice at the living world once more. I want to take them on my travels and remind them of what it is like to be outside and connect with nature. I want to feel the wind on my bracelet and let the souls of my loved ones know that I am going to be ok and release them once more into the open, where they can be free and young again. 

It all sounds awfully morbid talking about my lost angels so tactlessly but for me I find that being honest and open about my loss might help people cope with their own struggles and remember their loved ones in a new light. A blogger told me that over time your pain becomes hollow but in that hollow is a chance to recapture their hearts in a new light and remember them as they were in a life and not as they are in death. I felt a new surge of strength as I heeded their words and found that I did not have to explain how I dealt with loss to anyone. Many found it strange that I still went to work even after sobbing at the news and many failed to comprehend how I could still be writing when I was so upset. The truth is I don’t know but what I do know is that I am living and my heart beats on in memory of the loss of my loved ones. My heart, like the symbolic heart bracelet I wear on my sleeve is a reminder that I have a legacy to carry out and my angels, my sweet precious angels are watching over me with pride in their eyes. Because I know that they are proud of me, I know that they will wipe away the tears from their eyes and be proud that I will finish the legacy they started and never give up until the job is completed. My heart might have been captured and sold but I am on a quest to capture my heart with Chavin once more. 

Chavin allowed me to remember the hearts of my loved ones and how their generosity and colorful personalities live on, even after death. Chavin taught me to appreciate the land of the living and to wear my bracelet not as a ‘symbol of mourning’ but as a celebratory tribute to them in life, because life is too short to live in the past. And they are right, they would want me to be happy and not live out my years crying and lamenting to turn back time. Things happen for a reason and maybe their time was not meant to be long lived, I find it hard to accept that my friend had to die so young but I know that she lived each short day as though it was her last, willing her beating heart to keep her alive even when her organs had failed her. Because that is exactly what happened, the crash robbed her of everything but her beating heart and it was her heart -which was captured by love- that led her to her final resting place. In my restless dreams she tells me to regret nothing and to put my energy into living each day with renewed gusto and strength. Your a strong woman she tells me, don’t be modest you know you are. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and listen to your heart. Can you hear it beating? Good now pick up that god damn bracelet and put it on your wrist, better? Good now remember me and how I was alive; young, colourful and unapologetic. Live out my legacy and  travel, follow your heart.

They captured my heart in life and they captured it in death; I will never forget them and their wise words but most of all I keep to my promise and put that ‘godamn’ bracelet back on my wrist and remember their passion and vitality which kept them going even when everything else had failed them. 

Do you have a special symbol to help you celebrate your loved ones?