My Kintsugi Heart

Last week I lost a dear friend – Simon, Matt’s best friend and a steady light through some of my darkest times.

There is no neat way to write that. It sits heavily, quietly, like something placed on the table that no one quite knows what to do with.

In the days since, I’ve found myself noticing the small things again – light through the window, the sound of the kettle, the way the dogs wag their tails at nothing in the darkness. Everything feels sharper, more present, more fleeting.

There are two candles on the sill now. One for my love and one for Simon. The light holds them both.

I’ve been thinking about Mary Oliver’s poem, ‘The Summer Day’, one I’ve returned to many times over the years, but never quite like this.

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

MARY OLIVER

Grief has a way of stripping things back. What matters becomes very clear. Not the noise, not the urgency, not the endless scroll of the world’s troubles – just this. The people we love, the time we have and the way we choose to spend it.

This week, I’ve felt a quiet pull to step away. To stop watching the news and to come back to what is here and real and ours. To pay attention – to the grass, to the sky, to the way late afternoon light moves across a room.

To take more time for nature. More time for ourselves. More time for the small rituals that hold a day together – lighting a candle, opening the doors to the air, letting a scent drift through the house. Simple things, but not small things.

I keep thinking about a kintsugi heart – how the broken pieces are not hidden, but held, repaired, made part of the whole. Not as they were before but still beautiful. Perhaps more so.

We are here for a finite time. We know this and yet we forget.

So this is a gentle note – from me to you, and perhaps to myself too.

Hold your people close.
Tell them you love them.
Take the walk.
Light the candle.
Sit in the quiet.
Be idle.
Be present.
Be here.

Because this – this one, wild and precious life – is it.