There was a moment: quiet, surprising, and deeply personal, when I recognized a grief I had never named. It emerged not in a counseling session or a dramatic moment, but during a simple kintsugi art exercise at the retreat. The day before, I had completed a piece of pottery. It gave me a sense of focus, even satisfaction. I admired its form, the fruit of my hands.

But the next day, as I prepared to intentionally break it, to move into the process of repair and reshaping, a sudden sorrow surfaced. I didn’t want to break what I had made. I missed it already. 

This small act revealed something much larger: life is full of things we hesitate to let go of memories, identities, relationships, even versions of ourselves. We resist breaking them down, even when they are no longer whole or life-giving. We often carry grief without naming it. There’s a quiet ache in saying goodbye to what was familiar, even when we know it cannot remain.

As I tried to mend the pottery, I encountered a deeper lesson. I had forgotten that the nature of the clay had changed overnight. What had once been soft, pliable, and open to shaping had hardened. It was now brittle and fragile. What once held together now fractured more easily. I couldn’t restore it to its original form, no matter how hard I tried. It was  no longer yesterday.

This moment held profound meaning: everything changes. Materials change. People change. Time changes us. And trauma changes us, too - sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly. We are not who we were before the hurt. The desire to restore things to their original condition is deeply human, but often unrealistic. Trauma recovery is not about  returning to “how things used to be” - it is about honoring what was, grieving what is no longer, and gently welcoming what is becoming.

I found myself wanting to fix the clay pottery, to recreate it exactly as it once was. But I had to surrender that impulse. The clay had a new nature now. It no longer fit the mold of my expectations. And so I began to reshape it differently. It became something new, delicate, flowing, rose-like, following the pattern of its present form, not its past shape.

This is what trauma recovery looks like. It’s not about perfection. It’s not about undoing the wound. It’s about responding wisely to what has changed. Trauma doesn’t just hurt us,  it reshapes how we experience time, meaning, memory, body, relationship and self. That’s why the grief is often so deep: it’s not just about what we lost, but about how everything looks different now.

This reflection led me to a quiet conviction: to live well is to respect the nature of things: to see and accept change, to walk with it gently, and to create something new with what remains. Kintsugi, the art of repair, doesn’t hide the brokenness; it honors it, even beautifies it. In trauma recovery, this is holy work. It reminds us that our fractures are not shameful, but meaningful. They are part of the story of becoming.

So, let us cherish what we have while it holds form. Let us grieve when it changes. And when it’s time, let us gently let go and begin again.

Joseph HUI

CCST Vancouver MTS student