Bless Your Heart — A Legacy of Blessing

What Words Tiptoe Behind your Journey?

Whenever I hear the phrase, “Bless Your Heart,” my spirit brightens and one person comes to mind, Na-Na. I see her grace-filled face, hear the nuances of her voice, and I can still smell juicy fruit gum on her breath.

The phrase opens a portal into long-ago scenes of picking raspberries, squirrels in the park, marathon games of “Go Fish,” hot baths in her clawfoot tub.

“Bless your heart, Debbie,” she’d say after I did something that pleased her, like pick up my room or not clobber my little brother.

“Well, bless his/her heart,” she’d say when the postal worker collected the letter from her mailbox or the grocery clerk bagged her groceries.

After learning my future husband had three years of sobriety, she shouted with joy, “Bless your heart, Sandy!”

She’s been gone 27 years now, yet the phrase lives on, not only in my head, but I suspect in the head of anyone who knew her. You didn’t have to know her for a long time for her to become the face of “Bless Your Heart.” Unlike a commercial that must play a gazillion times before forever sticking in your head, she’d say it once, and you’d know, she owned it. If you try to fake “Bless Your Heart,” it comes off funeral-parlor-style creepy. The words must expel from the…