What we leave behind.

I have a love for little things. Little thingies. Shmatas. Chachkies. Little objects. little artifacts. I have...a lot of them. And I've Marie Condo'd them all, so yes - they all spark joy.  The little wooden boat, the music box that plays 'Edelweiss', the African bamboo plate, the tiny jewel boxes that each tell a different story....little figurines, artsy sculptures - some with a purpose, some with none whatsoever but sparking joy, of course.

Today one of my little 'thingies' broke.
It was an antique, a light blue box, made out of clay and featuring an image of a lady in a carriage riding on a cloud in white porcelain on its top. I used it to hold coins from a different place, or a different era.
It has had no real function other than that.
It was my grandmother's and an item I remember always seeing in her pile of beloved objects, when I would visit her as a child. Before she passed away, my grandmother moved to a smaller home, and started gifting away her possessions. I was gifted this little blue charming box along with some other little wonders she has collected over the years.
 
At the moment my blue box broke, tears were streaming down my face almost immediately.
Mourning the loss of connection, perhaps.
But then... good ole' curiosity appeared: What did this box mean to my grandmother? When did she get it? How? Did someone gift it to her like she had gifted it to me? And why did she have so many little treasures...? Was it because she fled her homeland at the age of seventeen, without a dime or possession on her? Shortly after, her parents were persecuted and killed, and she never saw them again, nor the home she grew up in... Is that why she created a relationship with things...? Because she knew how easily they can be lost...taken away... Did she want to leave these behind so the bond she had with them will live on, hopefully through her grandchildren? What DID it all mean to her?  I will never know for sure, but I will always have my curiosity, I guess.

The things we leave behind,
be it blue boxes...
antique jewels...
love letters...
and maybe even this daily blog of mine.
They are a way for US to live on.
For a piece of us to remain, while our body will for sure disintegrate. 

I repaired my blue box. Little amount of super glue and the cracks are all patched up. Yes, they will remain there forever, but I imagine so will the the cracks of our lives. And as Leonard Cohen said so beautifully: There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.