A few months ago, my wife and kids and I were taking a weekend away in the mountains.

The house had various board games and puzzles, and we decided it would be fun to do a puzzle of Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts King.

True told, I really enjoy puzzles. I've always had

an inclination in solving the impossibles, at least trying to. As the pieces fell into place,

the characters one by one started to come to life. You had Snoopy, Woodstock, Linus,

the whole gang.

As the colors began to unfold, there was a mixture of excitement and satisfaction as we were just a few pieces away from finishing the puzzle.

But then looking at the table, there was something missing.

The final piece. Looking underneath the box, there was something missing, the final piece.

Looking underneath the box and under our chairs, then the table itself, the last piece of

the puzzle was just, well, it was missing.

What?

Come on, my eight-year-old said.

No, he's never been the subtle type. For the most part, the picture was

complete. I mean, three hundred and ninety-nine pieces were exactly where they were supposed to be,

but that one, that one gaping hole was just, well, it was a hole. And I couldn't help but to just stare at it. It feels so

incomplete, I said. The picture just isn't the same without all the pieces. Disappointed,

we did what most people do after completing a puzzle, which is break it down and put everything back into the box and then head off for ice cream.

A well-deserved reward for such attention to detail, in my opinion.

Chad, how is this helping me?

Well, I share this story for a reason as it randomly came to memory in the middle of the

night last night. Yesterday to the day was one year, one year since my dad passed. And while over the

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