Puzzle Tradition

Charlie felt restless trying to fall asleep in her childhood bedroom. The pillow was too stiff and the sheets weren’t hers, they felt worn and scratchy. This was her first Christmas coming home in years, and she’d agreed to come home since her cousins were visiting, but she hadn’t expected to feel so unsettled. Everything that used to feel like home felt different now as an adult.

It had been six years since her dad passed away, but being back in the house made all of the grief feel recent. Instead of all the fond memories together, she kept remembering how it felt to come home for the funeral. The pain bubbled up in her throat and pulled her consciousness away from any hope of sleep. She kept checking her phone, willing time to pass, and fretting over the unending night.

She heard a facet dripping in the hall bathroom, and it reminded her of when she was eight. She tried to focus her thoughts on the memory, in hopes it would transport her to sleep. In the late 1980s, her family rented a mountain cabin during a blizzard. Her mom decided to drip the faucets to protect the pipes, and they woke up to three inches of ice in the bathtub.

They were stranded, but Charlie felt weirdly grateful for a weekend of rare, uninterrupted time together with her parents. She spent most of the days with her dad. After a movie marathon and an intense game of monopoly, they decided to brave the cold and go for a snowy walk, but the intense cold was too much. Her dad didn’t mind.

Soon, they were back by the fire admiring a collection of puzzles stacked against the wall. As Charlie nosed through the puzzles, she could hear her parents arguing in the next room. She probably could have predicted their divorce with the way they avoided each other all weekend, but she didn’t want to believe it. She ignored the tension and spent the day puzzling and talking quietly, it remains one of her favourite memories.

After her dad died, Charlie tried doing puzzles again. But she found it difficult, and taxing on her own, so she gave up. But on this sleepless Christmas Eve just before midnight when she was full of grief and back in the place she missed her dad the most, she decided it was the best night for it.

It had been six years after the loss of my dad and three decades since that stranded mountain cabin, but when she snuck downstairs, she swore she could hear him puttering away in his office. She even saw a small trail of light under the door, surely from a lamp her mom had programmed on a timer, but it made it feel like he was really there working away on the other side of the wall.

She stood in the hallway, creaking against the old floor boards, just trying to fully absorb the feeling. She effortlessly imagined her dad just behind the door, his plaid shirt and shaggy hair, and it filled her with hope and ache. She would give anything to be transported back in time just for an evening to work on a puzzle side by side together.

She missed his chats, his gentle voice, his listening ear. She missed the version of herself she got to be when she was around him. Standing here in the hallway, she saw the details that she remembered as a kid, tracing her fingers along the wood grains, standing over the air vent and listening to her dad take phone calls in her office.

Charlie lingered in the hallway, absorbing all of the familiarity, and trying to hold onto the memory of her dad being just behind the door. She remembered late night school chats and his quiet advice. She could almost hear him clearing his throat through the door. Her fingers hesitated on the door handle, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn the handle. The idea of opening the door to an empty chair was too heartbreaking.

She turned slowly and headed to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. While she was there, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her dad was just beyond the wall, beckoning her into his office. She swore she heard the floor creak like it did when he adjusted his chair.

The vision of him sitting there, waiting with a cup of tea to meet her became overwhelming. She had to crack the door for the off chance that she would see him.

She hesitated at the door again, and to hold onto the idea of him being there a little longer, gave a gentle knock. To her complete disbelief, a soft voice said, “come in.”

Her mind jumped with a mixture of hope and fear. Her hand pushed the door open with an eagerness she couldn’t contain. Charlie stared in awe of her uncle, a near spitting image of her dad, with his thinning beard and grey glasses, sitting on the couch and puzzling away. His warm eyes smiled when he said, “Charlie, hi. I didn’t know you were awake. You found my Christmas Eve secret.”

Charlie’s brain felt cloudy and foggy, but that all changed when she spotted her uncle sifting through one of her favorite puzzles from her dad’s collection. She knew her aunt and uncle were staying in the guest room, but she thought they’d both be fast asleep. She never expected her uncle to be here, deep in grief and memory, too.

“Is it okay if I join you?”

“Of course”

Uncle Joe had gentle tears in his eyes when he shared that every Christmas Eve growing up, he and Charlie’s dad would start a puzzle together. It was their Christmas tradition.

“I never knew that.”

“It’s my favorite winter tradition. I never stopped after he passed away. I like to imagine we’re putting it together, together.”

As they quietly puzzled together, Charlie and her Uncle talked.

They realised that for each of them, there had been a lot of turbulence this past year. They agreed that the holidays are meant to be a time for joy and togetherness, but sometimes it can be a struggle to find presence and gratitude through all the grief and family strife.

As Charlie quietly sifted through the pieces, she felt grounded. She thought about how this was the life her dad had hoped for her. Quiet fleeting moments of comfort and safety. It’s a sensation she’d been craving in adulthood, but rarely found since her dad passed away. Now, as the outside air was cold and still, she was at home, truly, fully, for the first time in a long time. For one small moment, life felt manageable again. She felt her dad’s presence in his brother. Doing the puzzle together felt like a hug.