Kintsugi
Six weeks after Justice passed and trying to figure out my new life, I wrote this and sent it to Darren.
It feels like our hearts are so fragile and made of glass. One day when life was perfect, somebody ripped into our chest, grabbed our hearts, and shattered them to the ground. Now our job is to pick up all of the pieces of our hearts and glue them back together. I know we will never find all of the glass from our original heart, and the new hearts we put together will never be what they once were before losing our daughter. We now need to build our new hearts with the strongest glue. From time to time, as life goes on, we will sometimes find something shining on the floor, and we will realize it is a piece of glass from our old hearts. As we pick up the broken shard of glass, we will need to be extremely careful because the glass will cut so deep.
We have now spent a year building our new hearts and our new lives. The pain we have endured I would not wish upon anybody. I have learned so much about myself; as I had to rebuild my new broken, imperfect heart. I had to think about what type of heart I wanted for the rest of my life? What kind of person did I want to become?
That is when I came across the term "Kintsugi" during my meditation one morning. Kintsugi is a Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. The gold used to mend the break embraces the flaw or imperfection and turns the broken into a unique piece of art.
Instead of using glue to mend my broken heart, I would use gold and turn my once broken and imperfect heart into something beautiful. So I decided to start Love Like Justice; I can give back and spread a great message. Love Like Justice is a way for me to have a voice, help people look at the world differently, give hope to people grieving, bringing joy and beauty into people's lives.
To learn more about Love Like Justice, check out our website. You can purchase an item or donate money directly to Justice's Foundation on the website. In her memory, all proceeds go to Justice Foundation to light up the Historic Bell Street Bridge.