When We Drop What We Love

We've all done it. Dropped something we love. Maybe it's a fine china cup. Maybe a Ming Vase. A plate, inherited from a long line of revered family members. A crystal glass, a ceramic bird, an enameled pin. A tender heart.

Maybe we're lucky. It's a short drop onto a soft carpet and all that happens is a little shard chips off, a shard that can be glued back in place like it was never gone, even for a second. No one would ever know it had been dropped. Maybe we vow to be more careful in the future, that never again will we be so careless in handling this precious object, the barely averted disaster reminding us all too clearly of just how treasured this item is. How worthy of our love and careful handling.

But time goes by. We forget, we do get careless. This time, it drops and lands hard, breaking into large jagged pieces that tear at our heart, lying at our feet and crying out in pain at our carelessness. We gather the pieces gently, carefully, glue them all together and it works, kind of, and while we don't quite understand how it even happened, we swear never again, and that it is as precious now as it ever was, and the scars that can barely be seen will remind us of our carelessness which will never come again. Must not come again.

But it does come again. And this time, it breaks in all the old places along with a few new ones, and the old places just won't be glued again and the new places don't glue tight, for they remember the pain of the scars that came before, scars of places healed only to be ripped once more. We try but are left with an odd mess we don't understand, can't fix and don't want to deal with.  If it's just a vase, a cup, a plate, we finally sweep it in the trash and wash our hands of it, though now we can never think of it without a little wistful sigh. Still, the guilt of dropping it persists.

And if it's a heart, well.......

We get angry, defensive. Why did that fall even break you? Are you so sensitive, so delicate, so pathetic? So bent upon being a victim? If that doesn't work, we wait. Time heals all things. Except, even time does not heal everything and if it matters enough, we must change again. Perhaps we begin to ponder our own reflection in that blank wall of quiet rejection. So we apologize, beg for forgiveness, mercy and feel that, surely, now all is well. Must be well. Just as before only different. After all, we've apologized. Doesn't that count for something? Forgive and forget.

Surely the dropped, broken thing understands it was never intentional.

That we have priorities. Demands on our time. Places to be and things to do. That sometimes, in the stress of it all, the cherished little things slip through our fingers and hit the floor, whether we intend it or not.

Surely the broken little thing will not hold that against us. Be that cruel and unforgiving. Hold our carelessness against us. Why can't things just be like they were before? We've apologized, for Pete's sake!!

And we just don't understand that it has nothing to do with forgiveness and everything to do with trust.

We are so busy feeling put upon that we can barely hear the broken thing as it says:

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. There won't be a third time, for nothing can be as it was before. It is broken, gone, irrepairable. The part of my heart that grew from us, from you and me, will not be again as it was for it has withered and died, though in it's place may grow a new and lovely thing, given time. But it does not grow without trust, and trust takes a long time to rebuild when once it has crumbled to the ground. Longer than love to return, longer than forgiveness to release us both.

Because long after forgiveness is given, long after memory fades, trust still remembers, still questions. So it is not my love that I will not give, or my forgiveness, and I have no wish of punishing a suffering soul. It is my trust I cannot give as easily as once I did. Because you have taught me that only I can be responsible for me, that unlike a cup or a vase only I can prevent a painful fall, that I am no victim or little broken thing but the phoenix rising from the ashes and saying no more will I place myself into your hands and trust you to keep me safe in your company. Trust you not to drop me so carelessly onto a cold, hard floor.

You yourself have taught me to trust in myself and not in you, and that is all. How then, can things ever be the same as they were when I placed myself blindly in your care?

No, it has nothing to do with my love and forgiveness, for you have those. Understand only this, that I will no longer allow myself to suffer for the love that I bear you. That is all."

One day perhaps, we hear, we understand. When we drop what we love enough times, there are consequences. No matter how close, no matter how long, no matter if it's family or friend, blood or water.

When we drop what we love, sometimes, we're the ones left on that cold, hard floor.