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Well I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
There comes a time in all our lives when we need to gather the different puzzle pieces we’ve been given so we can see the bigger picture.
The challenge is recognizing when those puzzle pieces present themselves. I was given one back in 2017, but I didn’t recognize it at the time.
It happened when I was wandering around downtown Denton, Texas.
Junior had just graduated from college and several members of his familial support staff were in attendance.
On our last day there, we did some sightseeing.
After enjoying lunch at an open-air bar, we wandered around the town square to kill some time before we were to put Mom on a flight back to Colorado.
On that stroll, I took a picture of my beloved wife of thirty-sumthin’ years.
Rest assured, it’s not her favorite picture but it’s probably one of mine.
Listen up husbands. If the opportunity presents itself to catalyze a stereotype about wives, man-law dictates that we exploit it at all costs. It took some begging, pleading, and other persuasion tactics to get her to even pose next to the shop with a big ball and chain in the display window.
As I framed the picture and basked in the moment that Wifey wasn’t smiling, Mom experienced a flashback as she stood next to me.
“It’s a good thing your Dad didn’t have a camera in hand when I…..”. Mom halted her admonishment before she could let loose a long kept secret.
“When you what?” I asked.
“Never mind.” For those of you who didn’t catch it, that was one of those puzzle pieces I mentioned earlier.
What memory was surfaced from Mom’s cranial archive when she witnessed me teasing Wifey?
I was never meant to know.
I generally forgot about that discussion in Denton that day.
I remember the stairs at the open-air bar were painted like piano keys.
I remember a truck parked in the town square that was festooned with declarations about the Earth being flat.
I remember that picture I took of my wife.
I forgot that Mom dropped a puzzle piece on me that I didn’t recognize.
Nine years later, another puzzle piece was dropped in my lap.
I didn’t ask for it, as I had forgotten it even existed.
I was taking receipt of Dad’s hunting rifles a few months ago. As we sat in his backyard, Dad opened the case and pulled out the 30-30.
I remember carrying that Winchester 94 on the handful of occasions that I joined him in traipsing the Wyoming prairies looking for mule deer to invite to dinner.
“Your mother and I went hunting near Buffalo once and she was carrying this rifle. She slipped and fell in a creek.”
“Whoah, really? I don’t remember that she ever went hunting with you. When did that happen?”
“About fifty years ago. Crazy Woman Creek.”
“Crazy Woman Creek? That’s its name?” I plunged my hand into my pocket and extracted a device connected to a series of servers and computers networked together for the purpose of information interchange and other hedonic behavior, just so I could look up a creek in Wyoming. Whereas the memories from fourth grade and all I learned about Wyoming history and geography had failed, a quick search on the worldwide web confirmed the existence of a creek in Wyoming bearing that name.
My internal flux capacitor hit 88 mph and shot me back to that time in Denton when I was taking a picture of Wifey.
The spill into Crazy Woman Creek was the puzzle piece Mom almost shared. No wonder she didn’t tell me that story. I would have walked right through that wide-open door just as I did with Wifey and the window display.
It’s just too bad man-law dictates that I assemble that puzzle.
