Thank you for your patience. My finger is still not right, I refer to it as my Frankenfinger, but I need to just get on and get used to using it the way it is. So, again, thank you for your patience. I hope I will be writing again with regularity.
I have been formulating this blog for months. From May forward, this blog has been stewing in my brain, so I hope it will be worth the wait. And thank you to Hugh at An Darach Forest Therapy for allowing me to use the photograph accompanying this blog. As you know, I always try to use one of Chris' photographs, but, in this case, what I have chosen is the right image for the subject.
As I approach the sixth anniversary of Chris' death, I am very much aware of the residual pain. Time heals many things, but it doesn't heal grief. And grief is not only our constant companion, it is our teacher. It teaches us how to live with it, how to accommodate it into our lives so that we can bear its company. And, if we listen very closely, it teaches us how to heal our broken hearts with love.
When Chris died, I almost felt the actual shattering of my heart. I could see it there on the floor in front of me, broken into a thousand pieces, like a delicate glass ornament dropped onto a white marble floor. Surely, there would be no way possible to find all the pieces to put it back together again. How could I do that? I didn't have the power or strength, not in the early days. I'm not sure I had it in the first five years; I'm not sure I have it completely under control even now. But I do try.
In Japan, when a treasured piece of porcelain or. ceramic is broken, it is repaired in a manner that doesn't hide the breaks. It is repaired with gold in the joints of the repairs. This not only makes the piece more interesting, more valuable, but it shows the journey the piece has undertaken. Nothing is unbreakable, not a porcelain bowl, certainly not a heart. So when we think of repairing our broken hearts, how shall we do that? What is the gold that will hold our shattered hearts and dreams together?
The gold that we use is the precious love and memories that have been left behind. When I first was thinking of this concept of repairing a broken heart in the method of Kintsugi, I could picture myself, picking up those tiny pieces of my shattered heart, placing them on a cloth in front of me, and slowly putting them back together. For the first repair, I think back on the day I first met Chris, our walk amongst the trees and plants of the Stourhead Estate gardens, our ease of conversation, the immediate attraction. The golden memory fills in the crack and, as if magic, two parts of my broken heart are mended. Bit by bit, piece by piece, I carefully and lovingly put the pieces together, from the tiniest sliver to the largest shard. Two pieces are joined by the laughter we shared when trying to save a mouse that had found itself trapped in our bedroom with our cat waiting outside to finish it off. Another two pieces are repaired by the memory of drinking a post-wedding dram of whisky from the silver and bog oak quaiche we had purchased during one of our many trips to the Isle of Skye. Those two pieces? The memory of Chris holding our two-year old granddaughter and dancing with her, creating a precious memory that not only repairs my heart, but hers as well. As I imagined the repairs I was making, the memories flooded back. With some memories, I laughed out loud, with others my tears fell silently and my chin wobbled, but my hands were steady as another break became whole again. And each of those memories is far more precious than gold could ever be.
Sometimes, the gold begins to fade and the break opens up again. Sometimes, I forget to look for the gold. And that's okay, too. Tears are necessary from time to time. All that unused love gets blocked up in our hearts and bodies and we have to let it go. So, maybe we just allow a small crack to open wide enough for the tears to escape. And once the tears are over, we remember the gold and put the crack back together again...until the next time. And there will always be next times. The loss we feel, the sadness...we can never banish it forever. But by remembering to look for the gold, we can make ourselves feel whole again, even if it is an ever-challenging task to keep those breaks glued together with love.
This has been burnished in the waiting for your finger to straighten. It is beautiful.