I grew up in a championship puzzler household
We may not have communicated clearly
But in our own ways
we were able to complete the puzzles
Lately, I have been missing puzzle pieces
I look in the usual places
on the floor, in the box lid, under the couch, in the vacuum
I can’t seem to find them
It’s not just me
The world is missing pieces
Our Uncle with a great smile is missing from family photos
Our Mom with her special recipes is no longer in the kitchen
Our child with expounding love for everyone isn’t in their room
I found our missing pieces in the place I last expected
In the pages of the newspaper
Pages and pages of them
The fabric that meshes our family is thread bare
The picture on the cover of the box is fractured
The obituary pages fare full of people you may have sat next to on the train
Beloved teachers, friends, aunts, mothers, uncles, neighbors
They lovingly held our recipes, our secrets, our language, our history, and our conversations
They held stories about how our world looked different
How we felt about each other before
If only we had those pieces
our world would make sense again
We might feel safe again
Remember who we were
We might not feel so l
o
s
t
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