Mother's Day 2011

Does anyone remember jigsaw puzzles?  I remember my parents bought  many boxes of them through out my childhood.  Some jigsaw puzzles came in very small pieces and some have large ones. I remember the vibrant pictures of  landscaping mountains or the crashing of the seashore against the rocks,  the forest always had the colors of the Autumn season as my family would work together in completing the puzzle on the dining room table of our home.  Sometimes the worst thing about completing a jigsaw puzzles can be when it come to the end of it and the last piece of the puzzle would be missing.  We would look all around the dining room for the missing jigsaw piece and sometimes we would find it and sometimes we wouldn't. While we would be working on the puzzle, my mom would give us our own section to work on and when we finished our section and placed them all together, we would get such a great sense of accomplishment as we all gazed at the finished puzzle. Sometimes  a jigsaw piece from the box would already be bent or broken apart in two so  my mom would always find a way to mend it with some clear sticky tape.  After my mom would fix the broken jigsaw piece she would say, "Look, it's good as new," and place the puzzle piece in it's proper place to complete the jigsaw puzzle.   

Reflecting on these memories reminds me of how Mother's Day 2011 may have felt like to my mom.  Most of my brothers and sisters who lived local came to visit my mom, we are all the different pieces of my mom's heart.  All of us sat together and talked and laughed with stories from the past, just like placing different parts of a jigsaw puzzle that comes together as one.  My mom received beautiful flower arrangements, colorful Mother's Day cards in the mail and in some cards where given person by her children, the array of  the different colors of the cards and flowers reminds me of the many different colors of a jigsaw puzzle. My mom received phone calls for her sons and daughters and that would make her happy because she always loved to hear from her children.  However, this was the first Mother's Day without my sister Mary Magdalene and I knew my mom's heart was sadden.  Even though my mom  darn well knew that her daughter Mary Magdalene is in heaven, I know that my mom longed to see her and wished things may have turn out differently.   Mary Magdalene is my mom's missing piece of her heart's jigsaw puzzle and it has been a painful one.  My mom knew that her daughter is no longer suffering or in pain but the pain in my mom's heart will always remain and as time goes on it may lessen but will never be completely gone.   At the end of the day, I asked my mom about how she was feeling about Mother's Day without Mary and she said,  "I miss her very much but I know one day I will be with her again," and smiled.  I hugged my mom and said,"Your right Mom, you will,"   One day my  mom will finally find the missing jigsaw piece of her heart that is waiting for her up in heaven.