Fiction

Holding A Human Heart   - Possible story piece

"Tell me one thing," I said, "That you want to do someday. It can be something unlikely, like walk on the moon, or a goal you're working towards.Anything you've dreamed about."

She paused, and I watched as several emotions played across her face. I recognized hope and uncertainty, blended with a kind of quiet thoughtfulness. When she raised her eyes to meet mine, I sensed she was going to say something that, maybe, she had never said to anyone else before.

"I want to hold a human heart."
She spoke evenly, with funny mix of assurance and I-know-this-crazy-but-aren't-all-dreams? She explained:
"Like a doctor does, when he performs a transplant. I want to be a person who stands there in scrubs and gloves and a mask while the anesthesiologist puts the patient to sleep. I want to talk to the patient, just for a moment, before he goes under, and tell him it will be okay. The doctor will open him up and I'll watch as he removes the old heart, the one that isn't working anymore. Then the doctor will turn to me and I will reach over into whatever special container they use to store living hearts, and I will pick up the new, healthy heart. I will hold it in my hands, cupped gently in my palms, probably squeezing it ever so carefully to make sure it keeps beating. I will hold it until the doctor is ready, then I will hand it over to him with love and care, as though it were a fragile new-born baby. I will watch as he places the good heart into the open cavity of the patient's chest and makes it so that the heart pumps blood and life into the waiting veins. I will stand quietly as the doctor sews up the patient and finally says, "Good work," to the nurses and anesthesiologist and me. Everyone will nod and say, "Good work," back, since it took a team but was the real work of the doctor who performed the operation and saved the patient's life.
"A few hours later, or maybe a couple of days, I will see the patient in the room where he is recovering. I will see him moving and talking and smiling. I will know that in his chest is the heart that I held in my own two hands and passed over to the doctor so he could make the man well. That is my dream."

As she spoke, I could tell that she envisioned each scene perfectly, a future film playing in her head. I could see it too. She was confident and certain, but when she finished she was suddenly shy, tilting her head and giving me a half shrug and saying without words, "It's crazy, I know, isn't it?"

"That's beautiful," I said, but it was almost automatic. I fixed it.
"Really. That's beautiful," I repeated, this time meaning it, putting the weight I felt in my words and look. She blushed a bit.

"I know it won't happen, not unless I go to med school, which I've thought about but it's a lot of money and it's a little late for me to start."
"Thirty isn't too late," I protested.
"I know, you're right, but I have a job and I'm happy, I am. I just mean it's a little late to toss away what I have to chase after something I might find out I don't want."
"They always say, 'You won't know until you try'."
She smiled. "Who is 'they' anyway, and why are they always giving advice through other people? If 'they' will pay for school and life and maybe a vacation of two, then I'll start to take them seriously." Suddenly she winked at me, lifted her face to the sky and called out, "Come out, you behind the curtain! I dare you to show your real face."

We both laughed, and in a moment she was asking if I was hungry and we were heading off to get something to eat, leaving the subject of dreams and holding human hearts behind. But everything she said stayed with me. I wondered then, and many times since, why we often dream of things which seem impossible, and what the line between possible and impossible really is.