When her son died at the age of 26, the world around her stopped making sense. One moment, he was alive, planning for college classes that morning, his clothes washed and ready for work that evening. Next, he was gone. He had smoked a joint laced with heroin and cocaine, and he never woke up. The shock of losing a child that way shattered her from the inside out.
In the days after her son died, she searched for something that might keep her from falling apart. Grief can demand movement even when the body can barely stand, so she began putting together puzzles. At first, it was just something to fill the silence. The tiny pieces gave her hands something to do while her heart sat still. But over time, the puzzles became more than a distraction. Each piece she found and placed began to feel like she was putting herself back together, even if only a little at a time.
Her first puzzle was an image of a quiet little town. A church stood in the center, surrounded by small shops and people walking through the streets. It looked like an ordinary day in an ordinary life, and maybe that was why she loved it so much. It reminded her of normalcy, of days when her son would walk through the door, smiling, full of plans for the future. When she finished the puzzle, she couldn’t take it apart. She turned it over carefully, sprayed glue on the back, and framed it. It felt like healing frozen in place.
Her family didn’t understand at first. They teased her gently for gluing puzzles instead of putting them back in the box, but she didn’t care. Each one felt sacred. The second puzzle followed, then a third, and soon there was a quiet rhythm to her evenings. She would complete her daily chores, cook dinner, and when the house grew still, she would return to her puzzles. The sound of small cardboard pieces clicking together became its own kind of therapy.
Some nights, she grew frustrated when pieces refused to fit. The trees all looked the same, the colors blurred together. Once, she even offered her kids a little challenge, betting them they couldn’t finish part of it in ten minutes. They did, and she lost twenty dollars, but she didn’t mind. The laughter that filled the room that night was worth far more than the money. For a moment, life felt light again. The puzzles continued to change as she did. The next one was brighter, filled with balloons, sunlight, and children running through the streets. The colors lifted something inside her. She didn’t know it then, but she created a map of her healing through every piece she placed.
By Christmas, she told herself she would do one last puzzle. It showed two cozy houses with a Christmas tree between them, the moon glowing softly overhead, people carrying wrapped gifts, carolers singing, children laughing. She left one final piece out on purpose so her daughter could finish it when she came home. The next morning, the puzzle was complete. It felt like a quiet message from her son, reminding her that even unfinished moments could still find their way to wholeness. Later, she looked at the seven puzzles she had completed. They told a story that began with emptiness and slowly filled with color, hope, and peace. Through them, she had learned to breathe again. Yet even with all the pieces in place, there was always one missing: her son. The space he left could never be replaced.
Once, while working on a puzzle with her brother, a piece went missing. They searched everywhere but couldn’t find it. Eventually, she gave up, glued it together, and shaded in a bit of paper where the missing piece belonged. No one could tell anything was gone when it hung on the wall. It looked whole, beautiful even. That puzzle became her reflection of life. Something can still be beautiful even when a piece is missing. Her son’s death left a space that could never be filled, yet his memory lived in every corner of her heart, stitched together like the colors of those puzzles. Grief had broken her, but piece by piece, she found a way to keep going, proving that love, once built, can never truly be taken apart.
