Gold Rush

Have you ever noticed priceless artifacts considered most valuable in this world, are things marked with fragility? Priceless art is one unexpected spark, or a merciless flood away from being lost forever...Faberge eggs would shatter with a brief slip of the fingers...Ming vases would topple to a marble floor, and be reduced to shards...regrettably, ceasing to exist, if they weren't preserved and protected.

Or would they? Something interesting about how the Japanese look at damage...they carefully examine those things that seem irrepairable to the average person...and choose a new identity for the item.

"When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful". ~Barbara Bloom

The loss of something valuable to you is always a catalyst for emotion. It can bring to the surface uncontrollable feelings of anger, frustration, sadness and grief. The losing changes how you foolishly expected your life would end up...if you actually believed you were the one to control the compass. The loss leaves you with choice...even when it's the last thing you want to face.

It can be as trivial as the black sunglasses I lost...I didn't replace them for weeks, knowing in my heart I would somehow find them. They have never turned up...and I have replaced them. It can be the unspeakable, unbearable, gut wrenching grief of losing a kindred soul you're doing life with...the canyon is vast, no replacement is possible. The value dangling on the pricetag of that relationship reads, "IRREPLACEABLE".

It's astonishing...absolutely confounding to me, the sparkling, white hot rush of gold that has filled the edges of my grief since February 13th, when my sidekick Michael went home, in the warmth and glowing sunlight of dawn. The gash in my heart...the near fatal wound to my soul, has been infiltrated with the most mindblowing, brilliant, priceless gifts. Beauty has arrived to repair the broken...that which remains has it's own special trademark of magic.

Someone said to me early on in this grief journey, that I would be amazed at the gifts grief can bring. I was much too numb and bewildered in that moment, to absorb the statement. The loss is inexplicable..I thought. Rather, I still think it even now, at this very moment. How can anything ever be right again? How can I possibly do life without him? This isn't what we planned...this isn't how it's supposed to be.

But then...as I chose to make small moves towards connection...to those he knew and loved...the strangest thing happened. There he was. He was in our midst, all over again. He was in the brave laughter and actions of his friends...he was echoed in the mischievious giggles of his sweet nephews. He is in his amazingly insightful sister...right down to her crazy driving, and love of adventure and ice cream. He is in his Mother...and her authentic journey to figure this life out...to understand, and be understood. He is in his Father..right down to the afternoons watching Nascar and the devotion to the Detroit Redwings.

And he is in me...he is around me...and he is with me, all the time. His laughter echoes in my mind...his insight challenges me still, to be a better person...just one day, one encounter at a time. Those glistening gifts he gave to me, filled the fractures I was trying to mend on my own, and I am blessed to have called him my friend. Losing him has resulted in a goldrush if you will...a flood that doesn't damage the treasure, but fills it to perfection, maximising it's beauty, strength and value.

So, I am branded..I am trademarked...I am forever changed..I am a friend of MB.