They stood side by side and stared at the closed casket as it slowly descended into the ground. Uncle Lester slowly leaned over to my father and mumbled, “Well, what are we going to do now? Aunt Glennis knew all our family stories and now she’s gone.”
The smaller segments represent minor life events such as dinner parties, school award ceremonies, and summer nights spent chasing fireflies. These parts snuggly attach to the more grandiose pieces such as weddings, births, and anniversaries. Together they construct the design that is my life.
If you took a moment to sort through the puzzle pile, you’d notice a piece labeled “fishing” included in the mix. My childhood consisted of fishing trips, therefore fishing equates to a foundational corner piece of my life’s layout.
To me, he is utterly charming. However, his charm is lost on my children as they deem him creepy. My daughter tells me that she “doesn’t trust him.” In fact, they play a game where they remove him from his home on my kitchen shelves and hide him in peculiar places. A month ago, I found him hidden in a laundry basket with a filthy towel draped across his hand-painted face.
So now he sits smiling at me from a shelf as I work. Recently, I pared down a collection of home goods that I gathered throughout the years, but his great sentimental value saved him from the donation pile.