There is beauty in imperfection.

Learning that there can be beauty in imperfection can be a hard lesson. Several years ago now my husband got a phone call that no one ever wants to get. “Your mommom’s not doing well, you had better come quickly.” and so off to Florida we went to say our goodbyes and although they had not seen one another recently they had been close when he was younger and the loss hit him hard.

Shortly after, we helped to clean out her house. As a young couple with not much to our name, we were offered a lot of the furniture. It was appreciated and as his mommom’s was one to buy quality items so we still have a lot of it to this very day. The coffee tables and china cabinet are nice…but it’s a silly old water-filled rose globe that made my husband break down in grateful tears when it was found.The rose globe is clearly old. The water is kind of cloudy, there’s a giant bubble at the top and the base is worn. It doesn’t even match most of our house decorations but here it sits anyway.

When my husband was a child he used to spend summers with his Mommom’s and in those days the rose globe was apparently, much nicer. Nice enough to grab the attention of young children. One day in curiosity my husband said he opened the bottom of the rose globe and thus was born the giant air bubble in the top. Being a child he was scared of getting into trouble so he closed it back up and put it back where it belonged. When asked about it later he says he told his mommom’s that he had no idea how the bubble got there. Looking back I suspect she knew.

Whether she knew how it got there or not the air bubble was never fixed. The rose globe remained a fixture in the house for as long as she was alive. When she passed the rose globe was the only item my husband wanted, it had obtained an almost legendary status in his memories.  It is now part of the memories of my own children as the story of the air bubble is repeated from time to time.

I could fix the rose globe…I could open the bottom, drain the water and refill it, I could repaint the old worn base and make it look as good as new again. But I never will. To fix the rose globe, to do away with the scars and flaws it has now would be almost like breaking it in the eyes of our family. The rose globe is an old and flawed item but there is beauty in its imperfection.  It is the physical remnant of a carefree childhood summer and a permanent fixture in our home.

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