Not all things in life can fall neatly into place
My daughter had been in the hospital for several days and we were all worn out.
Time does funny things in the hospital. The hours – day and night – flow into one another. The lighting is harsh and the constant traffic of people moving in and out of the room makes it difficult to rest.
If you’re just there for a short stay, as my daughter was last week, you can adjust. But for the truly ill, those that are in for a long hospitalization, it can wear you down.
I thought about that when tired, anxious and hungry for some kind of distraction, I walked into the lounge across the hall from her room. A wide window, filled with an expansive view of the city, looking north over the river and toward the mountains in the distance, claimed one entire wall. There was a vending machine and a television, and a few magazines were scattered around the tables.
A stack of jigsaw puzzles sat on the deep window sill.
My youngest daughter, who had been there all day visiting her sister, followed me into the room. She picked up one of the puzzles and brought it over to a table.
“Can we do this one?” she asked me.
“Sure.”
We opened the box, which showed a beautiful and very stylized painting of a lush garden beside a wide blue sea. Roses, lupines, wisteria and delphinium bloomed and the grass was thick and green.
I began to pick out the border pieces for her - the ones that have a flat edge - the pieces that form the frame for the rest of the puzzle. She put one against another, turning and twisting, looking for a fit.
A man and woman walked slowly into the room and stood beside the table watching us work. The woman was wearing a gown and a robe. Her hair was rumpled and her face was pale. She was breathing hard and leaning on the man.
“You picked a pretty one,” the man said, looking at the picture on the puzzle box.
He watched us work for a moment and then, unable to resist, lifted a piece and popped it into place.
“I love to work these things,” the man said. “When I was a kid, my folks worked puzzles every night.”
He picked up another piece and fit it in. He helped his wife into a chair and then sat down at our table.
By this time my oldest daughter, the one who was a patient, had come looking for us. She sat down next to her sister. Soon, we were all working together.
The room was warm, it was a hot day and the sun was bright outside the big window.
The man talked about his parents, and the puzzles he’d watched them work. The puzzles he’d bought them over the years. He talked about his three daughters. Every once in a while the woman would reach out.
“Ah, ha,” she would say. “I found one.”
“Well, look at you, my dear,” the man would say. “Aren’t you something.”
My daughters laughed at the man’s stories as they worked.
There was a lot going on in that room.
My mind was racing. I was thinking about my daughter’s health, but I kept my voice soft and soothing as I chatted.
And that’s when I realized that the man, with his steady stream of memories and recollections and seemingly unrelated sentences was doing the same thing. He was tired and the worry showed on his face. He teased his wife when she, after protesting that she was no good at that sort of thing, plucked up the right piece and popped it into place. He spoke affectionately and their banter hinted at a long history.
Obviously, his worries were bigger than mine,
My daughter would be home in a day, I wasn’t sure the woman would.
But, at that moment, even though we were strangers, we were gathered like a family.
The woman was fading and asked the man to take her back to her room. They walked slowly, side by side, just the way they had come in, out the door and down the hallway.
I watched them go for a moment before turning back to the puzzle, and back to my girls.
We were home by the next day, but off and on I thought about the couple.
We’d all like life to be as pretty a picture, smooth and unbroken. But that isn’t real.
Eventually, for all of us, there comes a time when there’s nothing left to do but sit down and pick up the pieces.