A Heart Shattered Into a Thousand Pieces

I have been reading a lot lately about grief and loss. Not because I am morbid and want to dwell in a sad, dark place. I just find it comforting to know that others have experienced the pain of loss that I feel, and that I am not alone with my feelings.

No one really ever walks through the dark valley of loss alone.

I was reading a book last night and came across a quote from Maria Shriver.

“Grief can make a liar out of you. You say you’re doing fine, when really your heart is shattered into a thousand pieces.”

This is so incredibly spot on!!! This is exactly how it feels…my heart has been shattered into a thousand pieces.

Crystal Heart

Many years ago I attended the funeral service of a young girl and her mother. I could not even begin to imagine the pain that the father/husband felt to bury both his wife and child. The death was the result of an accident in their home.

The young girl had turned 10 on her birthday that year and her father had given her a beautiful crystal heart. He wanted to show his daughter how precious and fragile the heart can be. It was a lovely symbol of his love for her.

The day his daughter died, the father picked up the crystal heart to hold it close. As he was placing it back on the shelf, the crystal heart slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor. That precious crystal heart smashed into a thousand pieces.

This dad fell to the floor sobbing at the loss.

At the funeral, this loving father stood up to tell the people at the funeral this story. He told us that the crystal heart falling on the floor represented how his heart felt. His heart was shattered into a thousand pieces. Both literally, when the crystal heart fell, and figuratively, when he found his sweet daughter.

This is exactly how I feel.

When my Daddy died, I felt like my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. I am not entirely sure that my heart will ever completely mend. I will try my best to find the shattered pieces and put them back together, but there will always be that one piece that I cannot find.

Puzzles

My family enjoys putting together puzzles. We each have our own way of tacking each puzzle. For example, I put all of the outer edges in place first in order to frame the puzzle. My husband, on the other hand, just starts matching pieces. One of my daughter prefers separating the pieces into the different colors or patterns.

No matter how we tackle the puzzle, the most frustrating thing is getting to that last piece and finding that it is missing. Seriously, so frustrating.

But isn’t that like grief?

At first, we search and search, refusing to believe that the last piece is missing. How can it be? We were so careful with all of the pieces. Then, we stomp around in anger because we can’t find the missing piece. We’ve worked so hard on the puzzle and can’t believe that we got this far and that the one critical piece is gone. We might blame someone else for losing or even taking the last piece. We may even be sad that we cannot complete the entire picture. Eventually, we accept the missing piece and realize that our puzzle will never be complete.

Grief feels like that to me. My crystal heart is shattered. My puzzle is missing a piece.

Right now I am walking through this dark valley. Knowing that I am not walking by myself does not erase the pain but it helps me feel not so alone.