The Sound of My Heartbeat

                                                                        By Soo Yong Kim

   Throughout my life, I had never heard the sound of my own heartbeat. I knew that my heart was beating, but since I could not place my ear against my own heart and hear it directly, I had simply taken it for granted that as long as I was alive, my heart continued to beat.

   In early September, I had an accident outside my house on the patio deck. I was carrying a jar of kimchi when I opened the patio door and stepped onto the deck. At that very moment, my right slipper slipped off, leaving my foot only halfway inside it. I lost my balance and fell forward with a terrible thud. There were a table and some chairs on the deck, and I tumbled onto a chair beside the table, still clutching the jar of kimchi in my arms. I must have struck the chair with considerable force, because I fell over with it and was dazed for several seconds.

   There I lay face down on the deck outside my house. I had no telephone with me, and my children were upstairs. No one knew that I had fallen.

   When I regained consciousness and came to my senses, I found myself in a desperate situation. I needed to let my family know what had happened, but I was lying helplessly on the deck, unable to move. It was already past nine in the evening, and I did not even know whether my children were asleep. Despite the pain, I began shouting their names as loudly as I could.

   No matter how loudly I called, there was no response for more than thirty minutes. My entire body hurt so badly that I could not move, much less make my way back into the house. Without a telephone, I could not call 911. The thought that I might have to spend the entire night helplessly on the deck filled me with dread.

   Still, I summoned every ounce of strength I had and continued shouting, alternating between my son's name and my daughter-in-law's. But no one answered. My wrists, elbows, knees, back, neck, head, and shoulders all ached terribly. I could not move my body at all.

   The night grew darker and deeper. Yet I held on to one desperate thought: I had to wake my son and daughter-in-law, tell them about my accident, and get to a hospital. With that single purpose in mind, I began shouting for them again.

   Perhaps another thirty minutes passed. At last, my daughter-in-law heard my cries and came downstairs from the second floor. When she could not find me inside the house, she went out through the patio door and discovered me lying on the deck. She immediately alerted my son, and together they took me to the hospital emergency room.

At last, I was safe!

   As I breathed a sigh of relief, pain swept through my entire body. My head hurt terribly, so the doctors performed a CT scan of my head. They also took X-rays of my neck, left shoulder, and left knee, along with blood tests. After several hours of examinations, I waited anxiously for the results.

   Thankfully, the doctors found no broken bones and no bleeding inside my brain. They suspected that I might have suffered a mild concussion. They advised me to follow up with my primary care physician if my headaches continued or if I had difficulty sleeping.

   On the way home, I cannot begin to describe how grateful I was to God. The doctor's words kept ringing in my ears: It was a blessing in the midst of misfortune that I had suffered no broken bones.

   I continued praying to God. I also received acupuncture, cupping therapy, and massages, and gradually, much of the pain subsided.

   But as time passed, I began to feel pain deep inside my body, in the region of my internal organs. I wondered whether I had injured my abdomen when I fell onto the chair while clutching the heavy jar of kimchi. I could not tell exactly what was causing the pain, so I scheduled an ultrasound examination of my entire abdomen for October 5.

   My liver, kidneys, bladder, pancreas, heart, and other organs were examined. The very last test was an echocardiogram, an ultrasound examination of my heart.

   As the technician moved the ultrasound probe over my chest, I occasionally heard the sound of my heartbeat amplified through the equipment. I was startled. The rhythmic thumping was so loud that it almost frightened me. I had never imagined that my own heartbeat could sound so powerful.

   As I lay there with my eyes closed, listening to that unfamiliar sound, I remembered attending a health seminar at a church several years earlier. A pastor had been giving a talk on health, and I had gone with a friend. I was repeatedly astonished by how much he knew about medicine and human health, speaking with a depth of knowledge that seemed almost comparable to that of a physician.

   When he spoke about the heart, he explained it this way:

   When God created humanbeing, He formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

   The pastor explained that when God created the human body, He fashioned all its internal organs, but the heart alone was made to begin beating and keep the body alive. He compared it to a car: even after a car has been completely assembled, its engine must be started before it can run. In the same way, he said, God starts the human heart, setting it in motion as though turning on an ignition switch. When God turns that switch off, a person's life comes to an end.

   He also explained that the heart is closely connected to the mind and emotions. In Korean, the word for heart, simjang, contains the character sim (心), meaning the heart or mind. When we become excited, our hearts pound. When we do something wrong and feel guilty, our hearts may race. He encouraged us to trust in God, obey His Word, and live according to His teachings, so that our hearts might beat normally and we might enjoy a healthy life.

   As I recalled the pastor's words, I was reminded once again of how precious the heart is.

   Yet I was also deeply grateful that, until that day, I had never had to hear the loud, pounding sound of my own heart so directly. The experience made me reflect on the wonder of life and the quiet miracle of every heartbeat.

   I thanked God anew for sustaining my life and allowing me to live in His love. It became a day of renewed gratitude—a day when I was reminded that even the simple, steady beating of my heart is a precious gift from God.