Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
The room was silent as my question thickened the air. I felt Savannah’s hand land on my knee in support. But I never took my eyes off Aika. My breath was held as I waited for her answer.
“No,” Aika said, matter-of-fact. “The shattered pieces may take longer to find, and they certainly would take longer to fix back together. But any broken plate can be mended with time and the sheer tenacity to do it.”
The relief I felt from her answer almost knocked me off my chair. I could feel Aika watching me closer. When I looked up and met her eyes again, she nodded her head once, like she could see into my soul. That curt nod was in encouragement. I knew she understood why I had really asked that question. Everyone around this table did.
“Okay, baby?” Savannah asked, her whispered voice shaking with sadness. Sadness for me.
“I’m okay,” I said and gave her hand a squeeze, then carried on, ignoring everyone else’s heavy focus on me.
Lost to the hours it took to fix the plate, I sat back when the final piece had been fixed back into place. As I looked down upon my lacquered plate, I lost my breath.
It was fixed. It wasn’t as it was before, but it was put back together. It was something new. But it was a plate again.
“What do we see now when we look at our plates?” Aika asked, her voice softer now, gentler, like she knew we were all as fragile as the plates we’d just spent our day rebuilding. The lacquer would take time to dry. To make it as strong as it was before.
“It’s beautiful,” Savannah said, staring down at her plate. She blinked away tears from her eyes and met Aika’s gaze. “I think it’s even more beautiful than it was before.”
“Ah,” Aika said. “This is true.” She gestured to all our plates. “A lesson then,” she said and smiled. “That that which is broken, once repaired, can be more beautiful than it was before.”
Chills tracked down my spine and spread out over my body. I reached out and took Savannah’s hand. Her fingers were trembling, and when I looked up, tears were trickling down her cheeks, like they were her own salty tracks of lacquer. I stared, captivated by my girl. She had been beautiful when we’d met. When she was broken into thousands of pieces. But now, when this trip and therapy had gradually glued her back together with golden lacquer, she was more beautiful than ever.
I knew my own pieces were still broken. Not all lacquered back together … yet. But as I looked down at my plate, I knew I could be. Someday. I would never be the same after losing Cillian—none of us were after losing our loved ones. You couldn’t lose someone you loved so much and ever return to the person you were before.
Loss changed you.
But you could heal. You could repair your fractured spirit with golden lacquer and hold on to life. That life wouldn’t look the same ever again. But it didn’t mean that it wouldn’t be worthwhile. That it wouldn’t be beautiful. Perhaps loss taught a person to love life more. Because you understood what it was like to lose that life. You wouldn’t take it for granted anymore.
I knew I wasn’t there yet. But if I kept going. If I kept trying, kept repairing my broken pieces, perhaps I could be.
A hand landed on my shoulder. Aika stood beside me. “I want to give you all a kit to take with you. For you to practice at home.” She smiled, and her brown eyes were filled with kindness. “For when you feel life cannot be beautiful again.”
“Thank you,” I whispered and clutched on to that gifted kintsugi kit like it was my lifeline. Like if I just held on tight enough, my veins would run with golden lacquer, enter my arteries and repair my broken heart.
I heard Aika’s voice echo in my head … “Wabi-sabi teaches us to embrace life’s imperfections, its impermanence and incompleteness.”
Nothing lasts forever. Life, happiness … even pain.
But hope did. If being around Savannah had taught me anything, it was that hope always hovered nearby. And if it was lost, it could be found again.
Savannah laid her head on my shoulder and just stared at her plate. I stared down at my own, the world disappearing around us. I had to find a way to repair my broken pieces. I kissed Savannah’s hair, smelled her cherry and almond scent. I wanted a life with this girl. I wanted to find happiness with her too.
I just wanted her, in every way.
The golden lacquer glimmered in the overhead lights. Maybe Savannah’s heart and mine had been broken by the loss of our siblings. But when we began to repair them, maybe we melded them back together to create our two hearts as one.