I love to do jigsaw puzzles. I don’t know where the fascination began – I can only assume somewhere in my childhood. I don’t have any memories of Dad working a puzzle with me (our favorite pastime was Scrabble), but I do remember working a puzzle with Mom on our dining room table. We struggled mightily with a huge, 1000 piece puzzle of the Matterhorn each night for weeks.
I recall little else from that time, but I can see her with her huge owl eyes behind bifocals straining to find a location of this or that piece. I can’t remember exactly which year although I must have been in junior high when we worked the puzzle. We would finish dinner – often eaten in front of the TV – then head to the big round table and spend some very quiet time working on the puzzle. We didn’t talk; we just worked together in companionable silence.
Once we completed the puzzle, we glued it together and I stored it under my bed for years. I used it for decoration in one of my dorm rooms in college and several work offices, but eventually the glue began to fail and pieces fell off. Finally, I sealed it in laminate although that really didn’t work very well.
Mom and I had the opportunity to visit the Matterhorn when we spent a night in Zermatt, Switzerland in the summer of 1985. We didn’t hike the mountain, but we did enjoy the changing light of the peak during the course of our visit. We took dozens of pictures trying to replicate the view of the puzzle. We even sat outside to watch night fall.
When this fog of dementia started descending in Mom’s mind, I read something about the mental challenge of puzzles to keep the brain stimulated. I brought several puzzles from our home collection hoping to engage with Mom once again over a table and puzzle pieces. I was too late, however. The disease had limited her ability to focus and even the toddler puzzles were too confusing for her.
I took a hiatus from puzzles for a while. I even put the children’s puzzles away although they were a great deal of fun for my piano students. Looking at a puzzle just made me sad. Although the Matterhorn is the only puzzle I remember distinctly doing with Mom, her inability now to work a puzzle took away my joy. I don’t remember the exact moment of deciding to get the puzzles out again, but I am so glad I did. I love them. I believe Dad thinks I’m crazy – I do get somewhat obsessive when I’m in the middle of one.
After a month long battle, I – with the assistance of many others! – finally completed a puzzle called “Heavenward” last week. The pieces were quite oddly shaped and it was far more difficult than it should have been for only 550 pieces! It is a beautiful scene looking toward the sky through red, orange, and gold trees. My goal was to put in 5 pieces every time I sat down at the table, but there were some days I really struggled and couldn’t make that happen!
Struggling with the jigsaw puzzle allowed me to wrestle a bit more with my emotions concerning Mom. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with weariness. The everyday ordinary consumes me. I have no place to complain; as I have mentioned before, we have fabulous caregivers and Mom is an easy patient. Nevertheless, if I’m being honest, I get tired. I live a life divided with studio, Mom, and Dad at one house and husband, daughter, and animals at another. I have done much to make the transitions as easy as possible – same type of sheets on each bed, similar morning and bedtimes routines at each – but I am still out of whack! So often I will need something I left at the other house and have to make a quick run to get it.
Some days I feel a scattered like the puzzle pieces when I first dump them out on the table. At least God has the frame in place for me. Each day, I’ll keep working out the pieces and try to put them in place, thankful for family, friends, and faith sustaining me when I feel like I’m losing it!
