English: : A mirror, reflecting a vase. Españo...

 A mirror, reflecting a vase. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The mirror broke, it is no more. It fell from its perch on the mantle piece, for no discernible reason. What once was light and bright and whole is now a jumbled up cacophony of reflected light, bewildering both the eye and the mind. This mirror was a family heirloom, one that I had known all of my life.  It had faithfully recorded my evolution from sprite to fawn to stag.

As I was looking at this mirror, which is no more, through tearful eyes, I noticed that each tiny shard held the memory of one reflection, which in itself is but one still frame in a movie, involving several characters. And each singular one of these movies has a different plot.

I took out my great grandmother’s silver jewellery box and, with infinite care I deposited each and every broken piece of the mirror, that is no more, on the burgundy velvet which lines it, thus safeguarding them from any further harm.

Every once in a while, I would take out the box, with its dull shining lustre, and I would pick out one shard at random and wonder… I would wonder what part of the puzzle, that constitutes my life, was held in the mysterious grasp of this particular one. Then I would sigh and put the piece back amongst its siblings, where it is content, thinking to myself that it did not really matter.

But then, one day I inadvertently put one shard back in its fortress, in an upside down position. When next the blue moon was its zenith, I opened the box and was dumbfounded to see through the back of this one upturned shard, into a sequence of one of my past experiences.

With a difference however, not only could I now discern the whole picture, which had hitherto always escaped me, but I could see more, much more… For the very first time, I realised that what I had always looked upon as the major mistakes, perpetrated by myself against myself, had actually purposefully happened, to steer me clear of worse mishaps, if not catastrophes.

Never again will I say to myself: “If only…” , for anything and everything that happens, does so for a purpose! I now hug my mistakes and wear them with pride, like badges.  Dream or reality?

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