Last night I accidentally knocked a mug off the counter, shattering it on the kitchen floor. Nothing ever survives that tile floor. Every mug we use in our house is one of a kind, not part of a set. But this one was more one of a kind—lovely green and blue pottery, purchased at some craft fair or open house and given as a gift. Oh well, I sighed. Some years ago now, a friend’s house burned to the ground during the night, and ever since I have been much less inclined to feel sad about the loss of things. 

The seven-year-old hasn’t learned such wisdom yet, or detachment, which is surely for the best. He got up from the kitchen table, surveyed the mess, and sobbed, mournfully. I couldn’t quite grasp his outsized grief for a mug he never even uses, but then I thought maybe I did.

It has been more than two years since our family broke apart, the last semblance of normalcy finally and forever shattered. My youngest doesn’t cry much; anger is his default when things don’t go as he’d like. Yet broken things and lost toys seem to provoke heartfelt sadness. Listening to his sobs, the broken mug emerged as a metaphor for all the things that cannot be fixed. I looked at the pieces strewn across the kitchen floor, and my heart broke all over again with his.

For children, the difficult thing about divorce is that it is never over. It’s as permanent as death with a grief just as real. The older boys can talk about it—honestly and with great insight—but when you’re four and your dad moves out, what language do you have to identify and express your feelings? Little to none, I’d imagine, which is why the tears over a broken mug sounded a whole lot like grief.