How Do you heal a Broken Heart?

I've had a very unsettling few days. You've heard me talk (frequently) about Evil Sister and her comical yet enlightening ways. I've spoken less often of my other dear friend, Good Sister. She is fifteen years younger than I am, is a professional woman with some pretty heavy responsibilities. I don't know that I could do all that she does and keep a sane thought in my head. I have known her since we moved to this county in 1988. Twenty one years and she doesn't seem to have changed much, if at all. She managed to work full time, rear a child, remarry and put herself through college. See, she is amazing. But that is not why I love her so. I love her for her kind and generous heart. She would drop what she's doing to help anyone. Not just those she knows and loves, but anyone. If she hears of a person in distress or need, she takes it upon herself to find the answer to their problem.

We met through our work. My family and hers were well known to each other. She had formerly been married to kin of ours, and I laughingly called her my "cousin-in-law" before we called each other "sister". We have stood by each other through tragedy and triumph, through life and death situations, through laughter and tears. When Mac had his heart attack, she got up from a warm bed and joined us at the hospital. So, you can see how I can't possibly turn my back on her, can't you?

She went through a particularly bad divorce five years ago. The break down of the marriage had begun long before that, but she held on, hoping against hope that the man she had loved would somehow see that he had changed, that he was no longer the stalwart slayer of dragons that he had always seemed to be. He refused to see that his damsel was in distress until it was to late to save the remnants of a marriage gone wrong. So it was all gone, up in dragons breath, burned to ashes, bitter as gall.

Early in November she met a man. She has been out on a couple of dates, always protesting that she is to old to be "dating" these days. I have encouraged her to have more in her life than her work. She needed fun in her life so much, and she's not a person who is ashamed to say she needs the company of a man, but it has to be a special man. This man she met while at a high level meeting, seemed to be the man. Although they only saw each other several times a month, (his business taking him far away, as far as Asia, as close as Spain...before getting back into the Charlotte area) she fell in love so quickly, so passionately you would have thought she was in her teens. She smiled and laughed all the time, looked forward to his return to the States each time. They stayed in constant touch via e-mail and cell phone. He was to return to the Charlotte area (which isn't where he actually lives) today. We went out to dinner with her on Friday and she was so excited that there seemed to be a light shining beneath her skin.

I've been on the phone with her for three days. Saturday she was a bit upset because she hadn't heard from him, but I calmed her down, talked to her...then Sunday she received a phone call from him. She called me, and she was crying so hard that I could barely make out what she was saying. I was pulling on coat and shoes, telling Mac I had to get to her. He could hear the panic in my voice and asked who it was he needed to kill. I burst into tears at that, so thankful that my dragon slayer was alive and well. I was telling her I was on the way and she begged me to just stay on the phone with her, that she'd be okay. We stayed on the phone for two hours. She cried. I listened. Then of course, I had to go to her.

How do you heal a broken heart? I know that somewhere someone has the answer, I wish you'd tell me what to do. I can't stand seeing her like this, and I can't desert her. I need the words that will make everything, if not okay, then marginally better. I'll be calling her in awhile, checking on her, making sure she is eating, giving her an emotional hug since we're now snowed in and I can't get to her to give her a real one. At least not today. In the mean time, my heart aches for her. I feel powerless to help. All I can do is be here for her as she has so often been there for me. It seems like so little.