We put a big jigsaw puzzle together at Christmas time. The dining room table was cleared and all the puzzle pieces were dumped out and carefully turned picture side up about a week before the holiday. The puzzle was chosen from two or three dozen puzzles carefully stored in the basement for just this time. A thousand pieces, at least, featuring some grand picture of usually mountains, blue skies, or fields that would extend toward the horizon…something challenging…something hard. There were four of us working on it off and on, every day. You’d grab a Christmas cookie and a glass of milk and you’d sit and look at the picture on the box and try to identify patterns of color or some odd shape and then you scan all those jumbled pieces. The edges were usually the first assembled and then a small section of birds in the sky at the top or a herd of cows down in one corner. But sooner or later you’d be stuck in the blues and the whites and browns of the background. There was general excitement at first with the edges and easy images but it wasn’t long before a dozen found pieces in a full evening was reason to celebrate. Dad, mom, grandma, and me…one or two of us at a time standing over this challenge, going cross-eyed, trying to find a certain shape or a certain color amongst hundreds of puzzle fragments. Every piece was important. Every found piece was a victory in itself. The edge pieces were important. They gave the picture structure and perspective. Every picture piece was important. They were the highlights of the project. But every piece…even the gray one shaped liked a dog’s head with three ears…every piece was important. We sometimes found ourselves with no more pieces yet one piece missing from the puzzle. Then everybody was on their knees sifting through the carpet pile…shining the flash light behind the table legs. Usually it was grandma who found it. She was usually a pretty sober lady but after we had searched and searched she would reach into the pocket of her house dress and say with a sly grin…”Well, how did this get in there?” And she’d reach across the table and slip that last piece in place…done. I know you don’t think that your presence makes a lot of difference in the meeting. Maybe you think that you’re not an edge piece. Maybe you feel just blue or gray. But in the end the picture is just not complete without you in it. We’re looking for you.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 18:52:23 +0000
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