My Grandmother Healy’s father died from a broken heart, says family lore. It turns out there is a medical term for this, Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. The Washington Post detailed “broken-heart syndrome,” when Debbie Reynolds died the day after her daughter, Carrie Fisher. Sometimes, the article said, the damage to the heart leads to heart failure which eventually leads to death.
My grandmother’s father had heart failure.
My father said the cause was “the tragedy,” which happened when his mother’s older sister bled to death during childbirth, as predicted. The family spent most of her pregnancy waiting for her death because when she was a few months pregnant, doctors discovered she had diabetes, which was a death sentence in those days. There were only the two girls in the family.
My father’s older brother also credited their grandfather’s broken-heart and weak health to being badly cheated by his business partner and subsequent financial struggles.
The silver lining was the baby, who lived to age 90, Dr. Holden Furber, who I loved deeply and who was a major influence in my life.