My Heart
by Leslie Meyers I left my heart in Africa. I left it for safekeeping in the smiling eyes of my father, the gentle caress of my mother, the joyful laughter of my little brother, and the soft yet strong arms of my big brother. I left it there, and all that remains is a void where it used to lie thriving. I venture past airport security, stopping every few seconds to wave and express my love to the huddled pieces of my once beating heart. I step through the body scanner and peel myself begrudgingly from their view. No longer able to see them, numbness radiates from the empty hollow in my chest. I maneuver through the crowded airport with a sharp, pulsating pain grabbing at my throat. Finally, I find my gate number and sit down in a sad looking black chair nearby. People rush to and fro around me, but I don’t notice. I can’t notice. All I can do is focus on the vacancy inside me. It should hurt—it should be exuding an overwhelming pain that encases my person—but it doesn’t. Without my heart I should not be able to be alive. Yet here I am, breathing and blinking and defying everything science has taught me. A child sitting across the room starts to cry; his mother picks him up and wraps her arms protectively around him. The little boy quickly quiets down. Mentally, I remember what it felt like to be safe in my own precious mother’s arms. Though I can no longer feel envy and longing in my heart, I dwell on what it was like when I could. Suddenly, an attendant at a desk starts calling groups of people to enter the boarding line for our plane. I am struck with the truth that I am about to be inside the metal beast that promises to carry me farther and farther away from my heart and those that are carrying it home with them. How am I supposed to be all right with this? How am I supposed to get on that plane? Finally, my group gets called, and I shakily stand up and clutch the handle of my carry-on suitcase. I must place one foot in front of the other, I must move, I must get into line behind the other passengers. Too soon it is my turn to hand my ticket and passport to the lady at the doorway to the dimly lit portal into my uncertain future. 68
I hesitatingly step through and continue down the bridge to the airplane. My heart should be breaking into hundreds of pieces right now—I should be leaving littered shards of it all along the boarding bridge—but that doesn’t occur. I make my way onto the airplane and sit down in my seat. Soon, we are going to take off and zoom above the clouds towards New York. The thought of going back to that cold, lonely state overwhelms my mind. Tears should be flooding down my cheeks and congregating on my chin, but how can I cry if I can’t feel? Half of me wishes I hadn’t left my heart behind me, so that I would be able to feel what I am supposed to feel, but the other half of me is glad I am leaving without it. It would be harder to face the cruelty of returning to my school with it intact and beating loudly inside my chest. The plane begins to rev into action and we proceed to speed down the runway. The plane then lifts off the ground and starts to glide higher and higher into the air. As my Africa grows smaller and smaller to my view, I grow more and more aware of how utterly alone I am in this aircraft crowded with humans. Without my heart I am unable to be encouraged by the feeling of my family’s love. Love is the most precious commodity and the thing that no one can thrive without; I have been blessed to hold an abundance of it within my heart, but I left my heart in Africa. Without it, I now venture forth through the sky, toward the unknown. My unknown looms before me as empty as the cavern in my chest where my heart used to lie.
