Imagine this: one day, you wake up and you realize a piece of your heart is missing. You can't see it, but you know it's not there anymore. When you try to feel your chest, to feel emptiness. You keep wondering why you can't feel it, how something can exist but not be touched or seen. You walk around every day and you know that there is a piece of you missing, but no one else does. Sometimes it hurts, but it's an indistinguishable hurt. It throbs and tickles, and it makes you feel strangely sad.
Imagine this: on the same day a piece of your heart went missing, your dad died. You feel sad, but you are unsure where the pain is coming from. You attribute it to the piece of your heart missing, but you cannot be completely sure. For months, you feel dull and empty, and nothing really feels the same way that it did before. Emptiness becomes normal and life isn't as brilliant as it once was. There is no longer a smell of food filling your nostrils as you enter your house or an old car waiting for you outside of dance practice. Every situation is empty and lacking in creativity and eagerness. Smells become more significant to you than ever before, and a picture really is worth a thousand words. Maybe 2,000 words. Maybe even a million.
Your sister doesn't smile the same way anymore, and it's absolutely heartbreaking to you. You don't know what you can do to help her. A piece of her heart went missing, too.
In your dreams, you are frantically looking for the piece of your heart that went missing. Sometimes you are able to see it, but you know, and the piece of your heart knows, too, that it will be gone when you wake back up.
So now you live life with a piece of your heart missing.
Life is strange without a complete heart. Love doesn't feel the same way it once had. Commitment is hard and the feeling of being let down is inescapable.
Your mom is taking the weight of parenthood all on her weary shoulders. You know that a piece of her heart left, too.
Then the anger sets in. How could a piece of your heart just get up and leave? Didn't that piece realize that it left you to fend for yourself now? Didn't it realize that there was strain now on the other pieces of your heart?
It seems that there is a piece of your family's heart missing too. Your uncles seem uneasy and silent. You wonder what it feels like to loose a brother.
A year passes—then two. Then three and four.
You are a lot braver now and a lot tougher. The other pieces of your heart have banded together to try to make your heart whole again. They try their very best every day to be vast and wide so you don't feel emptiness anymore. Although you know there is still a piece missing from your heart, it is not as noticeable anymore. You don't feel tickles or throbs as much. Instead, your heart feels lighter and happier.
You can never forget that a piece of your heart went missing. It will always be in the back of your mind day in and day out. But now, you are able to see that the piece of your heart didn't want to leave you. It was just time for that piece of your heart to go be with its maker.
You love that piece of heart so much that it hurts sometimes. Your love engulfs your whole body and sometimes it's hard to move. You know that the piece of your heart is always watching out for you, day in and day out, and is always there with you in spirit.
A guardian angel.
In loving memory of Timothy Lee Deakins. You have my heart and soul, Dad.
