This piece is written to my fellow grievers in the writing group.
Thinking about the beauty only found in grief brings to mind the Japanese concept of kintsugi, in which broken pottery is repaired using resin mixed with gold. The object is returned to use, and its broken places are not covered up, but are highlighted and made beautiful: golden repair.
In some ways, I have felt that Rader's death destroyed the familiar person I was before, and it seemed that a new, unknown person appeared in her place. But if I apply the idea of kintsugi, I can see that all the pieces are still "me," bound together again by something lovely and strong. We grievers are beautiful because we have been broken yet not destroyed. We have been trampled down, but we rise. We were brought to a standstill, then have begun to move again—maybe not always forward, but moving.
All my life, my concept of repair has been that to be good, it must be invisible. Therefore broken was bad, something to be hidden. It's refreshing, maybe even revolutionary, to embrace brokenness in my own life, to shine a light on it. To stand up and shout about it!
We the Tribe of After are beautiful. We love our lost ones with abandon. Fear does not stop us; we crack ourselves open. I am enriched by you sharing your stories and yourselves.
There is a beauty found in grief: the beauty of a thing subjected to more force than it could bear, but that survived.