At Jewish funerals we tear a garment.
We tear it at a place in the fabric, not at the seams so even if we tried to repair it, the textile would never be the same.
My scarf remains torn (it has been for 782 days) But I have tried to repair my heart Sewing up the brokenness with a thread of light.
I hand-stitched it lovingly, each stitch with the piercing pain of a penetrating needle, remembering to breathe, grounding myself as I pulled the thread tight.
So why, as careful as I was in this repair, as tightly as I closed the seam, do I feel the threads loosening the fabric fraying again at the initial tear?
Except now the gash is just as wide but the needle holes remain too, Reminding me That the work to be done to create wholeness is never painless, never finished, And always one pull away from unraveling.
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