Broken Heart Syndrome

This past Thursday morning, my husband received a call from his brother to let him know that he had found their mother on the floor of her apartment. She had fallen sometime late Wednesday afternoon or early evening and had tried to crawl to the phone to call someone for help but was unable to reach it. My husband and his sister joined their brother, and together, they cared for their mom.

When my husband came home later that day and filled me in on what happened, I asked whether they considered taking my mother-in-law to the hospital. She prides herself on her independence and was dead set against going. As a precaution, though, his sister stayed to make sure all was okay. A few hours later, his sister let us know that she had called an ambulance. The pain from the fall had apparently kicked in and my mother-in-law could not get up from her chair, even with assistance.

Once at the hospital, the doctors found that my mother-in-law had a fever and was battling an infection. In addition, she was suffering from “Broken Heart Syndrome” or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. The condition often comes on following severe emotional and physical stress. Although the condition is often temporary, the doctors said they wanted to avoid adding additional stress that might cause her to have a heart attack. They would proceed cautiously, administering medication that would help reduce the stress on her heart, and monitor her closely.

She was sleeping when I first went to visit her at the hospital. It was clear that she was fighting something and was dealing with the lingering effects of the fall. If not for the fall, however, there is no telling at what point we would have learned that she had an underlying infection. As of this writing, she celebrated her 90th birthday and is thankfully on the path to recovery.

Though we are taking things day-by-day, we are now faced with big questions that have no easy answers. These questions are namely centered on what it means to support my mother-in-law’s independence and whether she is even able to continue to live independently. Whatever the answers, however, we know that once she is released from the hospital, life is going to look different than it did before the fall. We’re hoping that different will not be less, but rather, equal to, and possibly more than what my mother-in-law had become accustomed to.

When my husband told me that my mother-in-law had Broken Heart Syndrome, I could not help but think about what has been unfolding in Israel and Palestine. Like many, I have been horrified by the violence and am heartbroken by the us versus them rhetoric. A rhetoric that dehumanizes, legitimizes meeting violence with violence, and prioritizes certain lives over others. Without a ceasefire, the genocide that is playing out in Gaza for all the world to see will continue; the ripple effects of which will last for generations to come across the globe.

To fully end the cycle of violence we find ourselves in as a global community, we need to take a long, hard look at how countries, nations, states, and nation-states perpetrate and perpetuate insidious forms of violence on humans they deem less than, within and outside of their borders. Forms of violence that are accepted but no less lethal than the displays of violence we have come to witness these last couple of weeks.

Poverty. Homelessness. Subpar or non-existent education. Lack of care of all kinds. Hunger and starvation. Incarceration and enslavement. Displacement, erasure, and extraction. All the ‘isms and 'phobias. Refusal to recognize, respect, and support every individual in their full humanity. These accepted forms of violence are at the root of countless atrocities – known and unknown – and are atrocities in and of themselves.

It is often hard to imagine a world different than the one that we inhabit right now; a different that is unquestionably more. However, if we proceed cautiously and anchor our decisions and actions on love and community, I wholeheartedly believe that we’ll be able to mourn, repair, heal, and live into the abundance that is here for all of us to partake of and to contribute to – as a global community.