Any parent who has spent an extended amount of time in The Heart Centre for Children with a ”cardiac kid” will be familiar with the Heart Beads.
They are a collection.
A timeline.
A story.
Each bead represents a different moment in a child’s cardiac journey. The big black beads for the really dark days. The little red beads for bloods tests. The tiny owl representing intubation…
Together, they tell the story of everything a child and their family has walked through.
The first time we were discharged from The Heart Centre for Kids, we were handed Soli’s beads.
And I wanted to throw them away.
As the kind nurse placed them into my hands, she smiled and said:
”Soli can collect more beads throughout his cardiac journey”
I remember the feeling that rose inside of me.
No.
He wasn’t a cardiac kid.
He had his surgery. He was ‘fixed’. We were done.
He was just Soli.
We weren’t coming back.
We weren’t taking this memory with us.
We weren’t adding any more beads.
Because the idea that this wasn’t finished – that there could be more hospital rooms, more fear, more moments added to that string – felt unbearable.
Reluctantly, I took them.
And then I buried them.
Deep in the bottom of a box, along with the memories, the fear, the grief and the emotions I had no intention of ever unpacking.
Until recently, when we moved house.
A move born from the realisation that the life we had created had become too much to carry.
The house was beautiful, but it was overwhelming.
Too much space.
Too much to maintain.
Too much stuff.
Too much noise.
Too much weight.
We needed less.
So we let go.
Every cupboard, every drawer, every box was opened.
Everything we owned had to answer the same question:
”Are you coming with us into the next chapter?”
And that’s when I found them.
The beads.
The tiny string of memories I had buried for years.
For a moment, I held them and thought:
Maybe I could hang these in Soli’s room?
Maybe these aren’t something to hide.
Maybe they are something to be proud of.
But then another thought came.
Do I want the constant reminder of that time in our lives?
Would seeing them everyday bring me back to those moments I had spent years trying to outrun?
And I realised I wasn’t quiet there yet.
So I didn’t throw them away.
But I didn’t hang them up either.
Instead, I placed them carefully into a smaller, special box.
This time they weren’t buried at the bottom of a box with things I refused to unpack.
This time, they had a place.
A place of their own.
And maybe that’s where I am too.
Learning that remembering doesn’t mean reliving.
That acknowledging what happened doesn’t mean I am trapped there.
That the hardest chapters of our story can exist without becoming the whole story.
Soli is not just a cardiac kid.
He is Soli.
A wild, funny, beautiful little boy who loves life with his whole heart.
But this is part of the incredible story that brought him here.
And maybe one day those beads will hang in his room.
Not as a reminder of the hardest days.
But as a reminder of how far he has come.
