PlazaJen: Passion Knit

I've always loved puzzles. Whether it's a crossword, sudoku, tetris, or a box of a thousand pieces, the puzz and puzzling of my brain is one of my great joys in life. I tend to approach most everything in life as I do a puzzle: understand the goal/desired result, assess the situation, determine the process, do the work.

Grief, thus far, has eluded me as a tangible, definable puzzle. It has felt like a large blob in Aisle 12, simply awaiting cleanup, and no matter how diligently I mop, scrub or scrape, it replenishes and shifts and changes and morphs and moves as I thrust my hands deep within it and try to find a hold, something to grasp. Because I've been searching for clues, trying to find something to give traction, a place to stand and stop falling down.

Yesterday, I left work a smidge early. I was tuckered out and the stress was gone, and I wasn't doing anything worthwhile. My mind wandered as I drove my familiar road home, and I thought about a couple situations in my life, and as I've done so many times before, I thought, "What would dad tell me to do?"

And that's when it hit me. When I finally found a line, an edge, a shape to at least part of this. An unspoken fear, truth, knowledge and sadness in all of this that finally felt concrete. Because I can't call him anymore. I can't ask for his advice, even if I chose not to take it. I knew that, of course. But I realized at the core of this, I'm afraid I won't be able to be wiser with him gone. Who will teach me, give me the perspective that only time can bring? Who will temper my spluttering, will tell me to calm down, and do so with the wisdom of my father, with the unconditional love of a parent, with the perspective of having known me from my first breath, my first cries, my first steps, my first words? Seeing that stark truth helped some of my grief form under my hand, and I felt the first delineation of an object, of a puzzle piece, an edge of a shape, a shape I hope to see in its entirety someday.