Except for my mother, my Grandmother Rogers and I had very little in common. (As the first grandchild, it was my duty to choose her grandmotherly name, and I chose “Wa-Wa”—because that’s what you get when a toddler tries to say “Grandmother Rogers”) She was born and raised in the country; I grew up less than a block off of Main Street. After marriage she lived all over Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky because my grandfather worked for TVA during their years of dam construction; I've spent my entire life—so far—in Savannah, Tennessee. She was a hard-core fan of professional rasslin’ (as opposed to wrestling); she even worked out a TV schedule that allowed her to watch it almost 24/7. I preferred some sitcoms with a smattering of non-violent crime shows. But we did agree on one thing. Jigsaw puzzles.
She kept one in progress constantly and every Wednesday night my husband and I would go by the Courier office to pick up the latest edition, then swing by her place for a visit. He’d sit and read the paper—and watch rasslin’—and she and I would work on the puzzle de jour. Believe me, she had some dozies. There was one in particular that I almost lost my mind over. It was round and covered in pictures of red and white Christmas candy. You know, like peppermints and candy canes and stripy ribbons that looked like waves or roller coaster tracks.
There was a process that always had to be followed. First you sorted out the side and corner pieces. Then you set aside all the others (I should mention these were usually 1,000 piecers) and assembled the framework for what was to come. After that you just rummaged through the box top and bottom, sifting the pieces through your fingers, looking for one that might actually fit the area in which you were working.
These days, thanks to our shared love of puzzles, I also keep one going pretty much all the time. I prefer landscapes but I’ll work almost anything. And I really like Charles Wysocki puzzles. They’re just hard enough to keep me interested and easy enough that I don’t lose my mind. And they aren’t round.
However, the last puzzle I tackled almost did me in . . . and everyone else who passed by the table and was sucked into its demon-infested depths. It was a beautiful picture of children fishing with an old grist mill and a covered bridge, complete with a horse-drawn carriage, but it was somewhat abstract, as in the lines were not clearly defined. And the pieces were every kind of wonky shape imaginable. I worked on that bloomin’ thing for months (‘cause I only have one day a week for puzzle visitation), piecing together sections and then finding where they might go in the overall scheme of things. Early on I finished the mill and the sky. Well, most of the sky. You see, there appeared to be one piece missing. One solid blue piece with just a hint of cloudy white. And since I spread all of my pieces out in sheet cake pans, face up, I knew after careful perusal that no such piece was anywhere to be found.
I still continued working, hopeful the piece was just misplaced. I mean after all, it’s a small house. How far could it have gone? But this past Saturday, I emptied the cake pans, putting the last piece in its appropriate spot—well, at least the last piece I had.
I’ve thought long and hard about how to solve this dilemma . . . after sweeping the whole house, looking in all the heat and air vents, moving the fridge, and looking in every available nook and cranny. I pondered trying to make a piece that would fit that spot, which would require exactly the right thickness of cardboard that would then need to be whittled into exactly the right shape. And then I’d have to figure out how to scan the surrounding colors and transfer them to the right type of paper. Or not.
I considered writing the company and asking for a replacement piece (like that’s even remotely possible) or a replacement puzzle that I could rummage through until I found the one piece I was missing. But no matter what plan of action I devised, I know me well enough to know I’ll probably never follow through on any of them. Meaning when I box this puzzle back up, on the bottom I’ll write the word “Incomplete” and stick it in the closet . . . just in case I ever do find that wayward bit of sky.
And that’s when it hit me. I can’t replace that piece. I can’t make a new one or find a duplicate. Just like I can’t replace the people I’ve loved and lost. There may be others who come into my life and step into that void, but they will never be that person. And for the rest of my life, I will label myself “incomplete” because I truly am missing one, very important, final piece. The one that completes the picture.
About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth-generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926. She has been employed at Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 45 years and currently serves as the manager there. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.
