When Things Break

Lately, lots of things have been breaking around me.

First,  a rogue basketball flew up onto the deck and landed precisely on the top of  my special hand-painted wine glass from my Aunt, sending ice-crystal shards everywhere.

Then, my new all-time favorite coffee mug, (a recent find at TJMaxx that I loved so dearly I had planned to blog about it), was elbowed into the kitchen sink by a lanky boy hanging by the waist washing his after-school hands, splitting the ceramic- flower and bird decorated-no handle needed-insulated so it stays warm indefinitely- most.  perfect.  coffee.  mug.  ever.

These two fairly insignificant breaks seemed to be testing me to relinquish all love of material goods, no matter how precious.  No temper tantrums were thrown(ahem), no tears wept, though I may have been spotted a time or three wandering the aisles of a certain discount store hoping to find another coffee mug (to no avail).


But last weekend, my dear friend's four year old son broke his leg.  This was no insignificant break.  He is fully casted, immobilized for a month and a half, in need of constant care by two working parents with no family in town.  A scenario I am all too familiar with myself.  


This is the hard break, when life is put on hold and parents see their perfect little boy bear the first fractures of this harsh world.  No amount of love and protection can keep our children from colliding with real life.  It seems that so many things in life start out perfect but it doesn't take long before hairline cracks develop, tiny little fractures that threaten to give way under the force of this world in which we must live.


And we realize that things will break.


Break in,


         Break out,


                  Break up,


                          Break down,


                                  Break apart.




But we cannot.


We must learn to accept what has been lost so we may see more clearly all that remains.