I am about to write down something I have only talked to my therapist about. I am going to need you, like a therapist, to stick with me, because I know what I am about to explain sounds really odd.

At my last appointment with my transplant team, I brought up my desire to be allowed to see my current heart after surgery. This is not an unheard-of thing. In fact, this desire seems to be especially prevalent in people with congenital heart disease. My doctor, while not shocked by this request, told me it could not happen. He said he could arrange a photo, but not a meet and greet, so to speak. It just isn’t something they have ever done. In the moment, I dropped the issue. It likely is a policy far above his head, and there is no reason to waste his time on the whys.

Since then, however, it is something that makes me profoundly sad when I think about it. This is where I need you to stick with me. Can you believe that wasn’t the weird part?

I personify my heart a lot. I think of it as both part of me and separate from me. I separate its actions from my own because my whole life it has seemed to have a mind of its own. My heart is stubborn and strong. It is unpredictable, but familiar. It has been both my adversary and my teammate. Even though it is failing, it is mine, and even as new symptoms emerge, there is still familiarity in it. I know what this kind of rhythm means, and what that sort of pain indicates. I cheer it on as much as I curse it out. I am both proud of my heart and saddened because I know, if given the opportunity, it might just limp along with me to the end. But that end would likely come much sooner, before I’ve had a chance to really do some living.

Now, I know my heart isn’t a person. Just like I knew my cat wasn’t a human. Stay with me. But the situation feels eerily similar. When my cat Gus, the cat who, over our time together, became a part of my soul, had a stroke, it was as close to unbearable as I’ve ever been. There was my cat, my closest companion, an animal who had been by my side through some of the hardest years of my adult life. He was still alive, but he was struggling. More than struggling, by the end, I believe he was suffering. For a couple of days, I stayed near him, pumped him full of meds, and hoped against hope that somehow, my sheer will and love could reverse the effects of what had to have been a massive stroke. He was disoriented and confused. He could barely stand or walk. He seemed comforted by me, but distressed in my short absences, and I’m talking trips to the bathroom. The cat who had the funniest attitude and expression for everything was gone, a shell remained. My heart was broken.

In the end, I had to make the only decision that love would let me make, and I let him go peacefully, hugging him until his last breath, letting him know he was a good boy, and that I knew he tried really hard. This happened three years ago, just before I went to have my first transplant evaluation. This road I am on was beginning, and while I know an animal can’t spontaneously cause a stroke, it felt like he knew I couldn’t take him with me on the journey.

This leads me to the now. To this heart. This organ that I know better than any of my others. My strong, sassy, backwards heart that has taught me every important lesson I’ve learned. It has taught me when to fight and when to rest, when to fold, when to call a bluff, and when to push all our chips in. We make an impressive pair, this heart and I. We have stunned many a medical professional, in both good and bad ways. We’ve caused our fair share of beard scratching and high-fiving over the years. It has never let me down, even when it was clearly struggling.

It is struggling now. That struggle isn’t like Gus, something I saw from the outside. It’s something I feel on the inside. It is present in every beat and breath. I know this heart in a way I have never known anything else. I know its rhythms and warnings. I know its quirks, its moods, its stubborn little tells. I have had a lifetime to learn its language.

And because I know it so well, I know this heart has done all it can. I’ve made a decision, the best one I know how to make. The one that feels compassionate for both of us, and the one I have to believe it wants me to make. Yes, I know that hearts don’t have brains.

Part of what makes this so hard is not just saying goodbye to this heart, but knowing I will have to make room for another one. A new heart will be a gift, and I know that. But it will also be a stranger in the deepest part of me, taking the lead in a place this heart has occupied my entire life. That is a strange and frightening thing to imagine. The idea of having to learn a new heart quickly, while healing, while grieving, while trusting it to carry me forward, is scary in a way I don’t think I fully know how to explain.

I know this heart has done all it can. It has been poked, prodded, wired, and patched in so many ways. As tired as I am, I know it is more tired, and yet it is hard to let it go. It feels a bit like betrayal. It feels like this time I am giving up on it, like I don’t trust its incredible will anymore. I know none of that is true, and not just because my heart doesn’t experience human emotions.

In the end, I want to see my heart to say goodbye. To tell it that it was a good heart, and that I know it tried really hard. And I want to see and hold this miraculous organ that beat every obstacle put before it, that would beat as long as I let it, and tell it that the only reason it is in my hands and not my chest is because it got me to a place where I could imagine there being more in the world, and because it made me want to know what that more might hold.

So yeah, I’m going to put up a bit of a fight. I think we both deserve to say goodbye. My therapist said he would write me a note if that helps, because he believes not only that I can handle seeing my own heart, but that it may be vital to my grief and healing process.

I am not asking to see a medical specimen. I am asking to say goodbye to my heart. Mine. The one my mom made just for me. A little broken, a little battered, but still miraculous. Still beloved. Still mine.

All I am saying is if Stonewall Jackson can have a whole grave for his arm, I think I can have a moment with my heart. I need to thank it before I let it go.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/grave-of-stonewall-jackson-s-arm