From A Jigsaw Puzzle published in Essentially Clare. Id never been good at helping Dad with those puzzles. Elizabeth and Ann were best, helping him piece together half the sky of the entire boring dark stretch of landscape. The first step, as any good puzzler knows, is to separate sections by color and theme. The begins the work of trying piece with piece, comparing, holding up against the lamplight, rejecting and selecting. Some pieces are so oddly shaped that they are a snap to match. Others belong in the nondescript set which are practically interchangeable. Practically. Almost. I found that the most frustrating aspect of puzzling was trying to fit together pieces which almost match. You can force them together with enough effort, but the effect is slightly inharmonious. The two pieces grate, somehow. Theyre not true partners.You know when youve made a good match, because the pieces almost jump together. The good matches put the lost matches to shame. So, I am a puzzle piece. One side of me is already attached to its just and appropriate match--my family. The pieces which are my family make up a lovely whole. They support me. Ill never fall because they are strong, they believe in me, they surround me with affection. Another side of me is empty. I have a peculiar shape, I think, so the puzzle-maker will have to find another peculiar type to fit me. There have been many almost matches in my past: boyfriends, crushes, boys who had crushes on me. Some were closer than others. Some were so close that I wondered if I should keep them to guard against the depressing possibility of living and dying with an empty space adjacent to me. Then, briefly, someone held me up and compared me to...What a beautiful and admirable puzzle-piece he is: gentle, kind, intelligent, faithful. I am lucky, indeed, to have met him. In the comparison it seemed to me that there was harmony. Here at last is a person whose peculiar shape is similar to mine. The colors which he adds to the puzzle are among its most vivid and lovely. Youll understand my disappointment, then, when I learned that this beautiful and admirable puzzle piece must go to the other side of the puzzle. His colors belong among the vivid colors of the sky while Im, perhaps, in the stark oak tree or maybe the flowers on the hillside. I dont have the perspective or the vision to see where I am, much less what piece will fill up the gap which remains next to me. Maybe no man at all but service or something else will fill up the gap. Many wonderful pieces are not people at all but vocations. But I have to trust that the puzzle maker can see better than I can. I must believe that ...colors are set off best in his part of the world; that mine are set off most appropriately in mine; that my colors will join with those of my surrounding pieces to form an integrated and eye-pleasing whole. I will be completed someday. But until then its my duty to reflect the lamplight as pleasingly as I can, in my proper place, contentedly. ------Clare Conall Furay (my sister. Brilliant beyond her short 26 years)
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 12:29:10 +0000
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