When We Are Broken… But Not Alone

The paradox of grief and the pieces that bring us back together

This post is also available in Spanish. Read it here

There are moments in life when everything breaks.

Not metaphorically.
Not gently.

It breaks for real.

Like something falling to the ground and shattering into pieces,
and you just stand there… looking…
not knowing where to begin picking anything up.

Grief has that quality.

It doesn’t just hurt.
It disorients.
It dismantles.
It reshapes everything you thought was safe.

And for a long time, the feeling is just one:

I am broken.

There’s not much more to say.
No way to soften it.
No way to fully understand it.

But this past weekend…
something shifted.

We were surrounded by pieces.
Fragments of ceramic, of paper, of memories, of words.
Nothing whole.
Nothing perfect.

And yet… everything made sense.

Because without even realizing it, we began doing something deeply human:

we started to bring things together.

Not to return to what once was.
Not to “fix” what cannot be fixed.

But to create something new from what remained.

Like kintsugi—
the Japanese art of repairing what is broken with gold,
not by hiding the cracks…
but by honoring them.

And in that moment, I understood something
I had only felt before, but never been able to name.

Grief holds a paradox:

“Broken am I, broken are you,
when broken together, we are each other’s glue.”
— Abhijit Naskar

We are broken.

Yes.

Broken by a love that still exists,
but no longer has the same place to rest.

Broken by an absence that cannot be negotiated.
Broken by everything that was left suspended in time.

But when we find others who are also broken…
something begins to hold.

The pain doesn’t disappear.
The wound doesn’t close.
The “why” is not answered.

But something equally important appears: the possibility of not falling apart completely.

We become, without even trying, a form of support for one another.

A look that understands without explanation.
A presence that doesn’t demand anything.
A shared silence that doesn’t feel empty.

In that space…
the pain is still there.

But it is no longer alone.

And that changes everything.

Because love—the real kind— does not disappear with loss.

It transforms.

It expands.
It becomes quieter, more subtle…
but also deeper.

It begins to live in new forms:
in a word,
in a gesture,
in a memory,
in a connection.

Matías, you are still present in every one of these pieces.

Love is still beautiful… even in the midst of what is broken.

In every attempt to rebuild.
In every moment when pain, even slightly, becomes shared love.

This space… this path…
is also for you.

And if you are reading this,
and you feel broken too…

you don’t have to rush to heal.
you don’t have to understand everything.
you don’t have to be strong all the time.

But maybe…
just maybe…

you can allow yourself not to go through this alone.

Because sometimes,
when all that feels real is the fracture…

it is precisely there,
when we meet others,

that something—very slowly— begins to hold.

Thanks to the Tom Coughlin Jay Fund and the New York Life Foundation for creating spaces where pain can be shared without fear, and where, through love, it can begin to transform.