I’ve had the little glazed ceramic trinket box for years. I bought it from the Hartville Hardware store as Jackie and I browsed the home decor aisles while our husbands wandered through the actual hardware section of the six-acre store. The box caught my eye with its sweet little bird perched atop the oval lid, its flat tail upright and perky. I was sure I’d have a few trinkets back home still homeless, in need of a decorative hiding place like this. Sometime last year, the finial bird’s tail broke (cats: why we can’t have nice things). I tucked the piece inside the box with a vow to glue it back on Later.

Last year also saw the shattering demise of two vintage 7-Up water glasses, one of our unbreakable Corelle cereal bowls, a rust-glazed vase made by Patrick’s aunt Ann, the lid to our Q-tips holder in the medicine cabinet, a brandy snifter we kept on top of the fridge with an unmatched collection of shot glasses, a ceramic ice cream bowl with a fish painted on the inside (the fish had legs, which was the feature that caught our eye, Patrick’s nickname being Running Fish. Long story. Will tell it Later) and a large hand painted planter from Italy that I plucked from a pile of discarded belongings left behind by a migrant family in Fostoria, Ohio back in the late ‘60’s (knocked over by two of the cats during a pre-dinner hangry chase through the living room).

Some pieces were beyond repair, swept carefully into the dustbin and moved onto that place where broken things go, but I held onto the ice cream bowl, Q-tips holder lid (the entire holder a gift from our late friend, Jeannie), Aunt Ann’s vase, the planter from Italy and the bird-adorned box, promising to set aside time on a breezy summer afternoon to restore them to partially functioning glory. Summer came and went, so did fall and here we are, standing on the fresh edge of a new winter, a new calendar year, broken shards still sitting on the hutch in my studio where the glue lives. I’m not a big new year’s resolution person but in a flush of impulsive inspiration, decided to begin the next twelve months by putting the tail back on the bird. It felt portentous, prophetic and productive. Next up, the ice cream bowl. It won’t be able to hold food again, but with adhesive carefully dabbed in all the right places, I’ve just doubled my options for corralling other stray trinkets. From their place on the hutch, the remaining broken items rustled hopefully; their turn would come.

At our hospice’s annual kids’ grief camp (on pandemic hold for the past two years), we take them on a “grief hike” to explore the different emotional aspects of coping with loss: sadness, anxiety, anger and healing. When they get to “worried woods”, they sift through a large wading pool filled with sand in which we bury colorful little ceramic hearts. They get to keep the one they find, a portable symbol of their courage for the days ahead. One year, a young camper was running back to the main building after the hike and dropped her courage heart on the concrete walkway where it split in half. Tears welling up in her eyes, she approached the camp chaplain, showed him the pieces and asked (as only a child could do), “Can you fix my broken heart?” He said he’d try and took her five-year-old trust home with him, the rough-edged heart pieces in his pocket. When he found her at camp the next morning, he gave her back the heart, now repaired with a thick line of dried adhesive running along the break line. “I couldn’t fix your broken heart”, he told her, “but I mended it. What do you think?” Her smile wide and grateful, she tucked the heart in her pocket and promised to take good care of it.

The past year left a lot of us in pieces, broken bits and large chunks of our hearts and lives scattered on the shifting floor beneath our feet. We salvaged what we could and swept the rest into the day’s trash, learning the harsh lesson of letting go over and over until it was part of our skin. Whatever we decided to hold onto, whatever might be fixable, still waits patiently for the right adhesive to put it back together. My money is on love, forgiveness, grace and humor. Those are my words for the year ahead and the promises I make to my heart with its mended places still healing, still holding fast to whatever repair work I’ve done. When I struggle with anxiety about what’s to come, I lean heavily on the salvific glue of the present moment to fill in any cracks where worry might seep through. So far, it’s working.

When I woke up this morning to check on the pieces I’d repaired, the ice cream bowl was still holding together, and the bird’s tail was pointing upward again. I’ve cleared a space on the studio worktable for the vase, the planter and the Q-tip lid.

One piece at a time.