There is often a puzzle in progress in our living room. Benjamin's mind seems especially well suited to a process that ignores words completely. I doubt that there is any inner chatter for him as he hunts for a certain shape, one that has no accurate defining name anyway. Color too, registers without the encumbrance of description. Sometimes he will pick up a piece from one side of the table and carry it to the other side, quite certain of where it will fit. I am amazed. 

 

Rachel Remen told a story about a puzzle her family was working on when she was little. Theirs was one of those families that hides the box lid, as it would be considered cheating to know what you were trying to create. It took several weeks to complete, and as the only child sometimes Rachel was in the living room alone with it. No one had really explained the game to her as she was just four and they no doubt assumed she would not understand. Sometimes she would find an obvious match if there was a bright blue bit of sky. But other pieces were dark, and reminded her of spiders. She didn't like them. So she hid them under the couch cushion. As her parents and their friends tried to finish the puzzle it became increasingly frustrating. Her mother finally counted them and discovered that over a hundred were missing.  

 

"Rachel, do you know where they are?" she asked. The little girl went over to the couch and lifted the cushion. Her mother showed her how they too were part of the picture, and Rachel was astonished to see that they contributed to its beauty. Now she understood what had been happening all along. 

 

It can be tempting to hide the dark parts of our lives. Cover them up with light conversation, and well kept lawns. But perhaps they too are part of the real majesty of the human condition. Today is my mother's birthday. At least if earthly ones still count by the time you step into eternity. There were black pieces of her life. Times of isolation, and depression, cancer, and betrayal. Yet the larger vista of her eighty years on this planet are somehow more poignant because of them. The glimpse she had as she lay mumbling hours before she died tells me that they were somehow not a mistake. 

 

"What are we celebrating?" she said, but not to me.