Poets and philosophers have often pondered whether anyone can die of a broken heart.
According to a study published in the European Heart Journal a few years ago, it’s possible. Some people actually have a rare but serious medical condition called “broken-heart syndrome.” Their brains may work differently from those of other people, leading neuroscientists and cardiologists to conclude that what happens in the head can hurt the heart.
More recent medical authorities have backed this up. In April, the Cleveland Clinic and Harvard Health Publishing both explained online what’s behind this phenomenon. (Its technical term is “stress cardiomyopathy.”) The broken-heart syndrome usually occurs when changes in heart-muscle cells and/or coronary blood vessels prevent the heart’s left ventricle from contracting effectively.
Harvard noted a list of stressful causes, including severe pain, domestic violence, receiving bad news, financial loss, intense fear, or unexpected loss or illness of a spouse, close relative, friend, or pet. I’d like to amend this list. I would emphatically include the expected loss or illness of a loved one. I believe that even when a loss is expected, it can spur intense grief, leading to a broken heart.
The Cleveland Clinic set out a similar list. It pointed out, in addition, that the syndrome is short-term for most, but some people don’t experience full recovery for a few weeks after the stress-induced event. And although it usually doesn’t cause permanent heart damage, it can cause other long-lasting health problems.
The Cleveland Clinic adds that both men and women over 50, and women in particular, are more likely to experience this syndrome. It states that more than 90 percent of reported cases involve women ages 58 to 75.
Because stress appears to be the culprit, medical authorities uniformly advise that grief-stricken people seek medical and psychological help to reduce stress.
In a number of books and articles, writers have described loss and grief in heartrending language. Examples are easy to find. Just a quick glance at books listed on Amazon.com and elsewhere reveals the countless authors who have written about their own experiences with grief and loss.
One example appeared in a recent issue of Mother Jones magazine, which included an interview with award-winning author Jesmyn Ward. Interviewer Jamilah King asked Ward a host of questions about her writing and how a lot of it deals with loss.
It turns out that Ward was profoundly affected by the death of her brother and the sudden passing of her partner 20 years later. She explained the grief she felt this way: “[T]he first two years were basically lost. It’s just a haze. Waking up every day with the shock of someone’s absence as the first thing you encounter.”
Later, she said, you learn “how to carry the love you still feel for someone while navigating your life…The longing doesn’t go away. You just learn how to live with it.”
Experiencing grief at any age can be heartbreaking, but it’s easy to see that it becomes more difficult as we grow older. The data collected by the Cleveland Clinic bears this out.
I personally observed someone dying of a broken heart about a year ago. He was a vibrant man in his 90s, a retired physician, when his wife of 60 years became ill. He became her primary caregiver, and for a year his whole life revolved around her well-being. When she died, his entire world collapsed. Even though he was still physically okay, he could no longer function normally, and he himself required caregivers for a few months before he thankfully died. Dearest Bill, whether or not your collapse and death checked all the boxes of broken-heart syndrome, I’m quite sure that you died of a broken heart.
I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you have observed this phenomenon in your own lives.
Almost all of us have experienced the loss of a loved one, leading to intense and long-lasting grief. Somehow we survive it. But, as Jesmyn Ward said, the longing doesn’t go away. The best we can do is “just learn how to live with it.”
susanjustwrites
