Prior to our grandkids' visit last week I spent a day cleaning, cooking, and catching up on laundry so they would have my undivided attention. As I walked into the family room to put some things away, I noticed what appeared to be raindrops on our double-paned-glass back door. Odd...the sun was shining. The sprinkler watering the lawn was way beyond our paver patio, a good 30 or 40 feet from the back door. As I moved closer, I became aware of an odd sound--the sound of breaking glass.
I stopped, turned around and went through the attached garage to locate Tom, who'd been gardening in a far corner of our yard. He joined me in staring, with shocked amazement, at the outer pane of glass, which just continued its ruinous journey. No glass fell, but the eerie sound continued for quite a few hours as the elongated droplets joined together, intersecting and entwining into enmeshed rivulets, eventually creating a beautiful, full-length web of shatters:
Although I tried, I could not capture how the mid-afternoon light shown through giving it the appearance of a giant multi-faceted diamond scattering rainbows on our walls--so lovely in its broken state. It will be a few more days before the manufacturer can inspect so they gave us permission to cover the shards with tape to enable use of the door. Surprisingly, no glass fell during the taping process (guess that's the idea behind high-quality tempered glass).
When a dear friend of mine dropped-by later that day, she bemused, "Just like us--shattered, yet still standing." Her 18-year-old daughter died two years before Andrea.
So many of us know the feeling of being shattered--by challenging experiences: the death of a loved one, suffering (or witnessing a loved one suffer) with an eating disorder (or any mental/physical issue), you name it--yet still we stand.
And depending on how we respond to the challenge, we, too, can be like giant multi-faceted diamonds scattering rainbows. I think it was Rumi who said, "“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” So it is, if we allow it. And if we choose our “tape” wisely, our “doors” will continue to open to the mysteries and joys of life.
Even so...I look forward to our back entryway being returned to its "un-shattered" state. It makes a great metaphor but I'd rather a door sans tape any day :-)
[Originally posted on the Gürze Books Eating Disorders Blogs]
