The Heart

I'm a person who bruises easily. They just show up and I'm not even sure what I did to deserve the wonderful blue/purple things.

I awoke one morning and in preparing for work, felt a familiar soreness on my tummy. What on earth had I done to get this bruise? It was so sore.

I went to the mirror to take a look. I was amazed at this new bruise of mine. It was all blue and purplish as a normal bruise would be. It was large - easy to see. I had to look and look again. The strangest part was that it was in the shape of a heart.

At first I grinned. I've always used a heart to "sign" my craft projects and sort of adopted the symbol as mine (From The Heart) so it seemed quite appropriate.

But, as amazed and amused as I was, I had a settling, affirmative feeling about the bruise. It eventually faded and went away. That was really a shame.

I was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer very shortly after the bruise appeared. Scary and painful treatments and side effects became my daily life. The prognosis was not particularly good.

But, with all that, I received such an outpouring of love and support from family, friends and coworkers it was almost unbelievable. I also amazed all the doctors with my reaction to the treatments and drugs I received - almost a miracle child.

As I look back now, I like to think the bruise on my tummy, in the shape of a heart, was a sign to let me know that no matter what happened and how bad it got, I was very loved.


Connie O.