Kintsukuroi or Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with a special kind of lacquer that often includes powdered gold. Once broken into many shards, a plate or bowl is pieced together, the cracks filled with golden liquid highlighting the vessel is more beautiful for having been broken.
The cracks, filled with gold, don’t hide the damage but highlight it.
When we admire a repaired bowl we are drawn to and acknowledge, what happened in the first place – the break. We don’t use the beauty of the new version to dismiss the initial breakage. We don’t look at the bowl and assume it was always like this. We are inspired by how it presents now, as a result of the experience.
No two bowls are the same and no two vessels will break identically.
Grief is like this. When we lose a child our life is shattered into a million pieces and we have no clue how to put it back together. The pain and loss leave permanent cracks in our hearts, but with time, love, and acceptance, we can learn to create a new way of being and ultimately a new version of ourselves.
The scars don’t diminish us – rather they tell the story, one that many of us want to share, but don’t often get the chance because it’s too uncomfortable for others.
Grief shapes us, and like Kintsugi, we can emerge stronger and with increased resilience for having embraced and stumbled blindly through our journey.
We often tell someone who has lost a child, ‘You are so brave‘, ‘I couldn’t do what you’re doing‘.
Let me tell you now, this is not helpful. We DO NOT feel brave and for the most part we have no clue what we are doing. When we hear these words, they can bring on feelings of guilt that perhaps we shouldn’t be coping as well as we are – or at least we are perceived to be.
A part of me wants to scream, ‘What choice did I have?!’ And yet I know we all have choices. We all have a journey and every experience (and response), shapes us along the way. Today I am filled with gratitude for every chapter of my story so far.
7 years ago today I dropped my son Ben off for a haircut. He had a work shift after that and was then heading to the gym. Each person he encountered that day had a choice as to how they would show up.
Too often we float through life thinking our attitudes and behaviour have no impact on those around us. It is easy to believe that our interactions with others don’t really matter.
During Ben’s last shift, he worked with a beautiful woman. She couldn’t have known what was to come in the following hours and she was kind to him. She admired his haircut, something I never got to do as his mother, and she complimented him, empowering him and lifting him up. Unbeknownst to her, this woman’s actions would have a ripple effect that 7 years later, still fills my eyes.
When we lose a child we might hang on to the little things… as these so often become the BIG things.
I can’t count the number of times I used to wish I could go back to being the person I was before that day. Today I know and accept, I am changed forever. And if I am honest, I am filled with gratitude for the beautiful people I have met along the way and the near bullet proof woman I have become.
The grief journey takes continual work.
It is exhausting.
It is painful.
No matter how long it’s been.
However, over time we somehow put the pieces of our life back together. They don’t fit the way they used and no amount of wishing will make it so. And the cracks are filled not with gold like Kintsugi, but with love, understanding, and acceptance – towards ourselves and received from others.
No matter how broken apart we might feel, we can find wholeness again.
Loved forever and missed more than words can say…. especially today.
Much Love
Dalya & Ben xx 💙