The Human Heart

How much Love Can it Hold?

How big is the human heart?  How many loves can a heart hold before there isn’t any more love to give?  How many children can a human heart love until the love is stretched too thin?

These are questions children have asked and I’m sure there are adults who have wondered about it, too.  I suppose it could be hard to understand, if you haven't experienced it. I can tell you how my mother explained it to me.  It’s exactly how I explain it to children.

When you fall in love, you grow a new place for their love in your heart. It’s unique and it belongs only to them. No one else can, or will ever take that place, because it belongs to that person forever.

If something were to happen and that person is no longer in your life — no matter what the reason, that place in your heart still belongs to them and it always will, only now it’s owner is gone, so we grieve.

Later, if you meet someone new and fall in love, you grow a whole new love and place for them in your heart. That also is unique to them and it’s theirs forever. You never take love from one and give it to another.  And you never share the love you gave to one person with someone else. 

With each new love, you grow a whole new place for their love, one which is separate and unique to only them.

This holds true in a divorce, too, even if you've been mistreated; even if you dislike the person, there is still a place in your heart that will always be uniquely theirs. Their personal place in your heart holds all the memories you ever made together, both the good and the not so good. That place is theirs forever.

A parent understands this. Parents feel it every time they have another child. You don’t take love from the first child and share it with the second, or a third. When a second child is born, a parent doesn’t have to worry about having enough love for two children —a whole new love grows in a mother’s heart for each child. It's in a place that’s unique to them and it belongs to them forever.

I believe it’s true for everyone who loves …

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