Missing pieces

The old house where I grew up is abandoned now, weathered, and leaning to one side.  It seems to be held in place by a cable connecting it to the power line on the corner.  For some reason, I think of the 1000 piece puzzle,  hanging in a frame  at the top of the stairs outside the bedrooms.   One piece is missing. It had always been missing, this bright blue odd shaped piece that would fit right in the middle of Lake of the Clouds, a lake in  northern Michigan nestled between the Porcupine mountains,  near where I grew up. 

 Ernie, a man who had lived with my family, had finished that puzzle  a few years before he died.

“Did you ever sleep with Ernie?” I asked my mom once when she was in her late 70’s and was willing to talk about anything.

“No,”   she answered.  “I married your father for better or for worse”.   There probably was a a fair amount of “worse”.  My dad had had an affair with one of her  friends.  She forgave him because that is what wives did in those days.  

Ernie was one of the people that my mom “took in”.  She had a habit of adopting people who needed something because she believed in sharing whatever we had, which wasn’t much, but enough for us.  Our leftovers often went to anyone who dropped by and was hungry.  She once gave away our TV set to a guy living alone who was alienated from his family.   

During my childhood our  house always had a mixture of my aunt’s or my sister’s friends who loved that my mom treated them like they were important.  She let them smoke cigarettes and  drink coffee and she listened to them talk about their boyfriend troubles.  She never judged so they often confided in her and asked her advice.

My mom also took in family members who were for some reason alienated from their own family.  Like my cousin Lucy, who didn’t get along with her father.   Lucy stayed with us a few weeks and then left, taking some of my new "days of the week" underwear.  My mom just said “she probably needs them more than you”.  Other aunts and uncles lived with us from time to time when they needed a place to stay.

Ernie stayed longer than anyone else she took in.  He was a  middle aged Finnish alcoholic  bachelor who lived alone on the farm where he grew up.   He had no other family that we knew of.    Like my grandfather, his parents had migrated to Northern Michigan from Finland.  He and my dad were friends growing up in a rural farm area called Mud Creek.   He often came to visit and spoke Finnish with my dad and reminisced about the good old days.   One night he came over and was so drunk that my mom made him stay.

He stayed for the next 35 years.  

Over those years, Ernie was woven into our family. He quit drinking, and began taking long walks and cross country skied in the woods behind our home.  He was a friend to both my parents.   My sister felt he was trying to replace my dad.   She ignored him mostly but later I found out she took a puzzle piece from his puzzle - that one blue piece from the middle of the Lake of the Clouds puzzle he was working on. Ernie finished the puzzle minus the missing piece and never mentioned it.  He mounted that puzzle on cardboard, framed it and hung it on the wall in his bedroom - the lake with a brown cardboard spot in the middle where blue should be.  

Ernie taught me to drive his old stick shift pickup truck.  The gear shifter was on the floor and we jerked down old dirt roads to the cemetery and the dumps.   I can still see him, hunched over near the door on the passenger side, ready to jump out if necessary.  I missed gears and chugged along, the clutch threatening to burn out, but he never criticized me.  

Ernie gave my mom something that was missing from her life  - something my dad couldn’t or wouldn’t give her - companionship.  He went with her on drives to look at the fall colors. He sat and talked with her  and helped around the house.   He also seemed to be a good friend to my dad.   He never replaced my dad with us.  He was like an uncle.

Ernie’s prior years of drinking caught up with him and he developed heart problems requiring a pacemaker and then a defibrillator.   He spent time in his room, doing those puzzles and reading until he was unable to care for himself.   

When Ernie died in a nursing home, my mom collected his few belongings, including an old leather wallet.   The only pictures he had in it were of my sister, brother and I. 

Now, I realize my family was the missing piece in Ernie’s life.