The Healer Of Broken Hearts

Let me tell the story of how I met the most amazing man I've ever known, my husband, Michael.  It's the story of how I met the man with a broken heart who just happened to make mine whole again.

In 2008, I reached a point in my life where I realized that everything I was doing was wrong. I had just ended a relationship that was emotionally and spiritually devastating for me. I was broke, I was living in a city I didn't like, a thousand miles from the majority of my friends and family. I was terrified and in flux in just about every area of my existence. My faith in God, my faith in men, and my faith in people in general was disappearing quickly. In short, I was a mess. The relationship in which I had invested three years of my life had caused me to become terribly withdrawn, and I had pushed away people who loved me for a number of selfish reasons. I was convinced that my life had reached the point of no return; that there was no way for me to get back to being the healthy, happy, and whole person that I had been at one time.

I decided that it was time to start over. I needed to create a new network of friends and re-enter the world from which I had so cravenly retreated. So I did what any good child of the 21st century would do under the circumstances. I posted a personal ad on craigslist.

Within a week, I received twenty-seven responses to the ad. I reviewed each one, and found myself responding with a totally uncharacteristic sense of apathy. Not a single email thrilled me. No one caught my attention. No one stood out. No one was able to snag the end of the string that had snapped from my heart, from which I was dangling dangerously, and reconnect it. That was the case until I opened response number twenty-eight, an email from a man who simply used the signature - Big Hearted Guy. There was obviously more to the email, but that phrase somehow caught my eye as being remarkable. Why, I'm not quite sure. It would prove to be somewhat prophetic in its own way, but I'll leave that for a little later in the story.

For six days, no fewer than a million words passed between us via phone and email. The first time I heard his voice, my soul seemed to expand - a part of me that had been hidden revealed itself, and even as it expanded, the happiness he brought to me threatened to overflow its confines. We met in person on a Wednesday at a Starbucks, and we haven't been apart since.

Four months and one week after we met in person, we got married in a small civil ceremony in Cook County. Our life together since then has been one hell of an unbelievable roller coaster ride. We've faced catastrophic health issues, lost a child before we even had one, and lived through poverty more extreme than I ever imagined. My husband was diagnosed two years ago with congestive heart failure, ventricular tachycardia, and cardiomyopathy ( an enlarged heart.) So, it was a bit prophetic that he happened to sign his first email to me "Big Hearted Guy." I truly believe God enlarged his heart because I needed more love than the average gal. And, as frightening as it can be sometimes, it's led to unbelievable blessings in our life. We don't take each other for granted, and at a fairly young age, we've learned about what is truly important in life - and we've figured out how to live each day together like it's our last.