Maybe I have simply led a sheltered life but that’s the only way I have heard it used. Until one day I was telling some stories to a friend of mine who grew up in the South. And the comment back was, “There’s only one thing you can say to that – bless her heart. In fact, every time you use her name, you should pause and say, ‘Bless her heart’.”
I learned that in the South, “Bless her/his/your heart” is a phrase used to convey many deeper messages. Sort of like “uff-da” can have more than one meaning to those of us from Norwegian heritage.
Here are the meanings as I understand them.
1. “Bless your heart” can mean that you are showing empathy. When a friend is going on and on about how they have been wronged by their friend, co-worker, spouse, in-law, boyfriend, hairstylist, etc., people in the South, shake their head, add in a little hand pat and say, “Bless your heart.” It’s sort of like saying, “I feel for you girlfriend. Sure glad it’s not me!”
2. It is also a phrase used to come before or after an unkind phrase or insult. “Bless her heart. That outfit looks hideous on her!” Again, this is done with a gentle, you poor thing, head shake.
3. The third way it is used is when someone just isn’t the brightest bulb on the string yet you love them anyway.
I have some stories that fit perfectly into the third example. So here are my “bless her heart” stories.
I once worked with a receptionist who, in an effort to protect her identity, I will call Katherine. Katherine is well put together, very stylish and quite beautiful. She reminds me of the Miss America contestants from long ago. Big hair, never a strand out of place, perfect make up and stylish. To add to the persona, she also has a very syrupy sweet little girl type voice- the kind that you can envision talking about world peace when asked that all important question in the interview round of the pageant. I won’t even try to guess her age but she has grown children and even some grandchildren so she is neither young, nor past retirement.
Katherine was put in charge of ordering the invitations for our annual length of service and recognition banquet. A couple of days before the invitations were due out in the mail, Katherine comes into my office with a box of printed invitations and a panicked look on her face. She places an invitation in front of me and says, “I don’t know what to do. There’s a typo on the invitation….” And as I’m looking at the invitation to find the typo, she adds, “And I checked through the whole box and the same typo is on every single one.” Ohhh, bless your heart!
This woman makes the best chocolate chip cookies. She brought them in on several occasions. I am not the best cookie maker in the world but I’d really like to be so I am always looking for tips and tricks to make them better. So I asked Katherine what her secret was. How does she make her cookies so fluffy? Mine always turn out flat. I was expecting to hear something about margarine vs. butter, chilling the dough overnight, chilling the cookie sheets, mixing everything with a special spoon or spatula or adding in a magical ingredient of one sort or another. But this was her answer. Without even a short pause, she said, “I use parchment paper to line the cookie sheets.” Yeah, I don’t think that’s necessarily the secret to fluffier cookies but thanks and bless your heart!
And this is my all-time favorite. I had the misfortune of fracturing my heel one summer. Being a bit on the stubborn side, when the pain started in my heel, I kept running on a daily basis and believed I could run through the pain. Several weeks later, when I finally gave up and went to the doctor, I ended up in a boot cast for quite some time. Mobility, although certainly nowhere near impossible, was a challenge for a while.
Katherine was on her way back up to the front reception area at the same time I needed to walk up that way to get some reports off the printer. She stopped to wait for me so we could walk up together. As I hobbled closer, I said, “Oh thanks Katherine! But you can go on ahead. I’m a little slow these days!”
She remained right where she was and as I got closer she said to me, “Oh, don’t worry about that. Some people say that I’m slow too but it’s not that. We just take longer to think things through.” I stopped in my off-kilter tracks and looked at her for a very long moment. I toyed with the thought of explaining to her that I simply meant that I WALKED slower because of my cast. But instead I just shook my head in a knowing way and said, “Bless your heart.”
Keep on smiling!
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