STARTED IT ON A DAY OF DEATH, FINISHED IT ON A DAY OF BIRTH

Sure-Lox "Double Rainbow" 1000 pcs

Today is my Dad's birthday.  He would have been ninety-one.  I have been cleaning up unfinished puzzles this week and wondered if finishing this one today might be a healing project.  I shared the story of this puzzle on my post THE PUZZLE OLYMPICS: GOLD ROUND post back in August.  I shelved it because it was the last thing I did before that knock on the door from my Mom.  

I have been binge watching the live stream of the World Puzzle Championships 2023 in Spain.  The commentators have been fun to listen to as I puzzle along side all the ambitious competitors.  They have gathered from around the world into Spain for the annual gathering of puzzlers to compete in single, pairs and team events of speed puzzling.  Somehow watching them gave me inspiration and energy to finish this puzzle.  

I got to the end and like my sister's puzzle "EAGLE OF PROMISE", it was missing one piece.  Yet another reminder that the picture of my life isn't complete.  

I have found puzzles a strange grief partner on this journey.  I just wish I had memories to go with them.  I can't remember my sister and I puzzling together.  I wanted to, and maybe I did when we were younger.. I just don't remember those moments.  Watching the pairs competition at the World's adds a little envy for me.  I don't want to puzzle fast, but puzzling with someone else looks fun.  I just wish I could do more of it.  

 

THE AEROPLANE: A PUZZLE AND A SONG

"BEECHCRAFT STAGGER WING"

September 21 marks the day I plan to release my fourth puzzle portfolio video.  In preparing for it, I wanted Tim Minchin's music to back it up with a couple of amazing songs.  This puzzle video is being dedicated to my sister, and the songs seem to fit.  But I faced a little issue.  The second song I chose was "The Aeroplane", and I had no puzzles in my portfolio video with an airplane.  The timing of the end of the song"Carry you" and the beginning of the song "The Aeroplane" had me looking for a 500 pc puzzle with a plane in it.  What I found exceeded my hopes for a great picture.  

Cobble Hill is my favourite puzzle manufacturer and to find this puzzle in their collection was amazing.  What I love about the picture is that it is a biplane cruising over bush country in the mountains.  I can imagine it as the place where my sister wanted her final resting place to be.  She asked that her ashes be spread in the Rocky Mountains.  What a suitable puzzle to finish off my collection #4.  

But I have a few days before I am scheduled to post my video and I still didn't have the puzzle.  I phoned Hobby Wholesale in Edmonton and found out that they had one left in stock.  I asked them to put it on hold for me and drove into the city to get it.  It was definitely worth it. It was the last picture I needed. 

The song "The Aeroplane" was composed by Tim Minchin, but my favourite version is when he invites a young girl by the name of Asmara Feik to sing it with him.  That is the version I chose to add to my portfolio video.  Her voice is melodic and such a compliment to Tim's vocals.  

Tim Minchin and Asmara Feik perform live "The Aeroplane"

Ruby's Puzzle Portfolio Video #4 

MY SISTER'S PUZZLE

 

"Eagle of Promise" by James A. Meger (SunsOut Inc) 

It was the Saturday after the Tuesday that my sister died.  My husband and I made our first trek out to the farm to connect with the family.  I found myself venturing into my sister's prayer room.  It was originally my older nephew's bedroom.  My sister converted it to her sanctuary a few years after his death.  

There is a desk by a window that overlooks her back yard.  There was a serenity found just to sit and look out the window.  I wondered how many times my sister stared out that window.  I wondered if she found the peace I was finding in that moment.  

I looked around her prayer room and saw a small library that she had built.  Those must have been her special books.  I saw one book that I had given to my brother-in-law a few years back and wondered if she had read it.  I had never heard back from anyone if that book was read or if it meant anything.  I just saw it in her prayer room and had to rest with the mystery.  

Something else grabbed my eye as I perused her library.  There was one lone puzzle sitting on the top of her books.  It looked strange to be there, as the puzzle collection was downstairs in the living room.  Something seemed special about that puzzle, but I couldn't ask her why.  All that was present with me in that room was my memory of her, and maybe some residual energy and breath from her times up here.  She came to this room to find her peace.  Maybe this puzzle was a picture of that search.  

There was no sun to be seen in the picture.  Just a possibility of sun to come.  A beautiful rainbow arched across the picture against a mountain back drop.  She loved the mountains.  It was still dark, so the storm may have passed, but left behind a dreariness only broken into by a lone rainbow.  And there was the eagle.  It wasn't stationed on the dead tree in the foreground, like a depressed soul not able to leave the darkness.  No, that eagle had lifted off.  With its wings spread, it wasn't waiting for the sun to appear, it needed to fly, it wanted to fly.  Maybe the beauty and colours of the rainbow invited it to soar, even in the darkness.  

I took the puzzle home with the intent to finish it and have it displayed at the funeral.  But that didn't happen.  That puzzle took me a month to finish.  I think there is poetry in that.  Grief takes time.  Now I have finished the puzzle and am wondering what to do with it.  I wonder if bringing it back to my sister in her prayer room will be the most fitting place for it.  

I wish I had memories of us puzzling together.  I don't.  I only have a future that won't include those times together that I longed for.  Now I will keep puzzling and find my own peace among the pieces that I assemble.  

October 2, 2023

I remembered there was a picture of my sister puzzling with her son and her mother-in-law, but I didn't know what puzzle they were working on.  A closer look made me aware that it was indeed "The Eagle of Promise" puzzle.  I was overwhelmed with emotion at the idea that these three would be in the picture with that puzzle.  These three all died within six and a half years of each other.  This is the picture of the darkness of our family.  But somehow, someone caught them all on camera working on this puzzle.  How precious is that.  I miss them all so much.