I had just finished writing yesterday’s blog about Lost and Broken Things, when I walked into the kitchen and heard a loud crash. Apparently, for no reason, a green goblet jumped off a knickknack shelf in the corner of my counter and smashed itself on the kitchen floor. I was nowhere near the shelf when it happened. The shelf was solid without a wobble, the goblet was well back from the edge of the shelf where it had been for the past seventeen months, the air was still, and yet, there it was, bits of green glassware all over the floor.
This goblet had nothing to do with my shared life with Jeff. I hadn’t even met him when I got it. I’d bought it at Target when I moved into my first apartment for the grand price of twenty-five cents. At the time, I bought two each of three different sizes. I’d kept them for decades without incident, but when I unpacked them after I moved in to my new house, I found that one had broken in transit. And now another is gone.
If I were fanciful, I’d say Jeff knocked the goblet off the shelf to tell me . . . I don’t know. That broken things don’t matter? That I lost his spoon, so he killed my glass? That it’s not just “our” things that will be succumb to entropy?
But I’m not fanciful. I’m just at a loss to explain that particular breakage at that particular time.
Besides, if Jeff were to contact me, I’d hope he had more interesting things to bring to my attention than broken glassware.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator
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