“I wish I was a kid again, because skinned knees are easier to fix than broken hearts.”

How true this saying goes.  As kids, the most hurting moment of our lives may be that of having an accident while playing. Scratches and bruises made us cry and ran to our mothers to be soothed and made whole again.  But not so in having a broken heart.

What causes the heart to get broken? Almost all of the time, it is when love is lost or gone, and when betrayal sets in. And who can properly, adequately put into words the excruciating pain, the throbbing ache that comes with a broken heart? 

Like a knife it cuts deep within the very essence of the soul, staying there for a long, long time. Maybe this is why many broken-hearted people take their lives, choosing to end their existence, not wanting to feel the pain anymore.

But a heart alone does not make a person. We are given our intelligent minds to weigh and think things through. Aside from being against God’s law, suicide is not a very smart thing to do when the heart gets broken. 

Let me tell you why—using my friend’s personal experience. Allow me to quote her very words as she had told them to me one bright, summer morning:

“It was a day I won’t forget. I found out Neil was cheating on me and with my best friend! And when I confronted him in the office about it, he nonchalantly admitted it, like it was nothing! Like I was nothing to him. I knew then and there I cannot rely on this man to make me happy.

“So I broke up with him and ran outside the building, crying. I loved him, I really do.  It was so painful for me, we’ve been together for a year and I was expecting us to be serious. Outside, I climbed my way to a bridge and walked mindlessly. When I looked down, I saw the streets below, the people walking around and the cars going about.

“Suddenly, I told myself, ‘I’ll jump down this bridge and kill myself.’ And just as suddenly, I told myself back: ‘No way. I won’t die if I jump down this bridge. I’ll just injure myself and humiliate myself more.’ And then I went home and forgot about Neil.”

I laughed when she told me this. Actually, we both did. You see, my friend Denise turned a tragedy into a comedy just by using her mind wisely—she did not allow herself to be blinded by a heart that is torn apart by a two-timing, insensitive moron.

We could all learn a lesson from Denise.  That, and the undisputable truth to the old adage: time heals all wounds. Where pain was today, tomorrow it will be forgotten—like a bad dream. Let us remember that there is always a light at the end of a tunnel, the dawn after the night, the sun after the rain.

(Postcript: Denise just got married to a wonderful guy who totally adores her.)