secondhand Emotionen: About Hearts and Love

Weihnachten rückt immer näher! Für mich bedeutet diese Zeit: Erinnerungen (neben Kekse backen…)

Man soll nicht in der Vergangenheit leben, weil man dann das Jetzt vergisst… aber was gibt es schӧneres, als alte Fotos anzusehen? In Erinnerungen zu schwelgen? Oder fast vergessen geglaubte Geschichten mit alten Freunden wieder ausgegraben? Ich erinnere mich zum Beispiel daran, wie meine Großmutter mir Geschichten erzählt hat. Und wie ich meinen beiden Au-Pair-Kids in den USA Geschichten vorgelesen habe. Ich kam in den Genuss, in einem Altenheim in Denver, Colorado einer „Märchenstunde“ beizuwohnen.

Davon habe ich einen der Texte wiedergefunden. Der Autor ist mir leider nicht bekannt.. aber ich will die Geschichte hier verewigen, denn sie ist es wert.

Vielen Dank für all die schӧnen Erinnerungen!

Around the hills and through the heart shaped mountain sits a small village near a river. The people there know only summer, very rarely do they experience winter and even then it is rarely really cold. They are happy people who take pride in their hearts and love to compare whose is stronger, prettier or can beat the fastest. On one beautiful day when the rolling hills were bathed in the warming radiance of the sun the folk had gathered on the market square – it was the end of the week, the wonderful time where everybody would gather so they could compare their hearts. On this very day a crowd had already flocked around the podium when a youth climbed the dais. He was tall, healthy and strong – a good fellow always happy to help and smiling, but also a little bit vain.

“See how strong my heart is, friends!”, the youth spread his arms and opened his chest for all the world to wonder:”It is so healthy and beautiful, would you not want it to be yours?” The crowd was astonished and awestruck, the children pointed and the grown-ups nodded: it was a very impressive heart indeed. Yet there was one that did not marvel, one that wasn’t surprised but laughing nonetheless. The heads turned to see how would interrupt such a fine display of a heart.

It was a man dressed in little more than rags, the one they only called the wanderer for he was the sole member of the village to venture past the heart shaped mountain and around the hills. “That you call a beautiful heart?” the old man teased with a grin and brushed a strain of his wild white hair out of the wind burned visage. The young ones face had reddened and he called back:”What would you call a beautiful heart then, wanderer?” The old ones smile grew softer:”Oh, I am pretty happy with mine, would you like to look?” When the figure opened his chest the crowd sucked in the air and there was silence. “THAT you call a heart!?” The youth could not trust his eyes:” ‘tis no heart but a rag rug!” The tissue was old and scarred, many pieces were not originals and there were even more holes.”Yes, this is my heart,” the wanderer said and explained:

“It is scarred by the many times I have loved and lost. See these pieces? They are not mine, but priceless treasures given to me by people who loved me. See these holes? They are from times when I gave my heart to someone else. Sure, every so often I have gotten back less than I have given but that does not dampen the love I’ve felt when I gave it away, but reminds me how precious that person was to me. Life is to be savored with all the ups and all the downs, all the hills and all the valleys all the pain and all the pleasure. Even when all love seems to vanish from sight the heart will always remind you that it’s there. Always.”

The young man fell silent for a moment before climbing down from the dais with tears in his eyes. When he stood before the wanderer his hands tore off a piece of his heart and offered it to the old man. With a warm smile the gnarled hands touched the soft flesh of the youngling, but not before reaching into his torso and bestowing freely what the old heart could give.