A Heart That Works

by Rob Delaney

A heart that hurts is a heart that works. —Juliana Hatfield

To any toddlers reading: yes, capitalism solidly and demonstrably places your grandfather’s recovery from cancer above yours.

I hadn’t even known that he’d been grappling with depression. I guess I felt that my own struggle with depression and the fact that I took medication—and had been quite open about it—meant that I might somehow receive priority alerts if someone anywhere in my orbit was similarly afflicted. That wasn’t the case, though.

I must confess I now find it difficult to truly and fully relax around people who haven’t had some significant tragedy and pain in their lives. Just another one of the many things that make me a fun hang.

After he died, I had the odd sensation of somehow being older than my parents, or at the very least having seen something that they hadn’t, and it had changed me. I felt like no one, even my parents, who raised me, had anything to offer me that could light my path and show me a way forward. It didn’t feel like I could lean on anyone in a way that would truly, substantively help me. That was a very sad and lonely feeling, and while it wasn’t a correct assessment of my place in the world, it is what it felt like.

Rather, I suspect I am a glass of water, and when I die, the contents of my glass will be poured into the same vast ocean that Henry’s glass was poured into, and we will mingle together forever. We won’t know who’s who. And you’ll get poured in there one day, too.