I placed the final piece into my puzzle yesterday. I have a habit of leaving the puzzle on my table for a day or two to see the completed project, to notice the details that were lost to me when each piece was an entity rather than a part of something bigger.
This morning I sat with it. After my coffee had gone cold and Ivy slept at my feet, I observed. I soaked in the view, the color, the leaves, the apple, the cat with whom I shared a view out the window.
My eyes would from time to time return to the hole left by the missing piece. I don’t know when or where it was lost. Nor do I know why. It was gone the last time I made this puzzle. It remains gone.
I imagine tracing its shape from the gap it’s left and creating a new piece. Instinctively I know it will not be the same. I can’t mimic its depth or its essence. It remains gone—remembered by its absence, yet, also by its once having been there.
It is still a part of my puzzle; I unapologetically enjoy what remains.