That is the nature of endings, it seems. They never end. When all the missing pieces of your life are found, put together with glue of memory and reason, there are more pieces to be found. Amy Tan

December is one of the wettest months in Shelter Cove, California and last year was no exception. Although Dan, Molly and I managed to find several windows of dry skies to take Lucy, our rambunctious black lab, for a hike or a run on the beach, we spent most evenings and much of each day hibernating in the living room of our Airbnb listening to the rain dance on the roof.

While I cozied up on the couch to read, Molly and Dan worked their way through the host’s collection of 1,000-piece puzzles. Their focused attention and quiet camaraderie reminded me of the hours I spent with my grandmother assembling images of well-loved fairy tales or the winners of the Kentucky Derby.

There’s something soothing about working on a puzzle with someone with whom you feel completely comfortable. Without noticing, you fall into a collaborative rhythm as you eyeball the pieces and select the next one you want to place, deferring to the other person if they reach for it first. Sometimes, you take turns building the same edge or area. At other times, you each work on your own small section, watching the image emerge as you go.

As you get close to completion, it becomes harder to step away as you focus on finding homes for the remaining pieces. My grandmother always let me place the final piece. Dan and Molly had no such system. I remember the satisfaction of seeing the finished image. Walking by it repeatedly during the day. Insisting we not take the puzzle apart right away before it had been properly admired.

But as sometimes happens, two of the three puzzles Molly and Dan painstakingly put together were each short a single piece. Despite assembling the puzzles in a line on the dining room table in the case they were in another box, and despite a thorough search of the living room, those missing pieces never did turn up.

What is it about a puzzle, that no matter how beautiful its image, all we can see is what isn’t there? The vacancy, the absence, the broken pattern. It undermines our sense of satisfaction, leaving us feeling frustrated about not being able to finish or recreate what once was whole.

Like a tongue drawn to the space where a tooth once was, our brains keep coming back to what should be there trying to complete the image and fill in what we know has been is no longer there.

Our lives are like jigsaw puzzles. They start small with a limited number of pieces that fit together easily, mirroring the simplicity of our childlike needs. Food, sleep, our favorite toys, our most important humans.

As we grow, our puzzles expand as we add pieces – new adventures, new experiences, new friends. But pieces disappear, too as friendships break, tastes change, families splinter, loved ones leave. In many cases, the hole doesn’t remain for long as we discover new people and passions to fill in what’s been lost. But in others, there is no replacing what has disappeared.

In the jigsaw of our family, Jimmy will forever be our missing piece. Irreplaceable, unlocatable, gone without a trace, his absence leaves our lives incomplete. No matter how hard we’ve tried to fill that space, the gap remains.

Twelve years on, my brain has finally come to terms with the reality of his death, yet even now I struggle to make sense of it. The here replaced with the no longer. The symmetry of our family forever gone. The missing piece I have tried so hard to find.