puzzle pieces

I remember putting together bits of sky and bits of grass, corners of buildings and lovely faces, landscapes and puppies, mountains and street scenes, in my grandmother's house where she kept many a jigsaw puzzle on a table. There were techniques to this--find the corners, find the edges, put the sky in one pile and the sea in another; could that be a horse?
Sometimes it seems that much of my life has been and continues to be one of putting bits together. Families come looking for lost sons, lost daughters. People come asking "do you know so and so--he likes books, he lives out a dirt road". The family looking for Eric and his dog Lobo didn't have much hope of seeing him. His mother feared he'd taken his beat up old car off the road. He wasn't always--sane, she said. I knew the dog better than the man, having enjoyed watching Lobo pull Eric down the mainstreet on a skateboard. Lobo is part sled dog, and beautiful, and enjoys a good romp. But I hadn't seen the two for weeks.
We put up the posters. When I stood in my Friday vigil, Kate came by and said "I know that guy you have up in the window". I told her to go use our phone and call the family.
She did, but left no contact point for them.
Small towns are good, however, and when I ran into the family next and was brainstorming where they could check--perhaps the monastery, since Eric was of a spiritual bent--Kate strolled by.
Contact was made.
I wish it were always as easy, and the endings always happy. Eric brought me a book--Dog is my copilot--as a sort of sideways thanks. He seemed happy to have spent time with his sister from Colorado, and his mom from New Mexico, and his brother all the way from Canada.
Send postcards more often, I told him.
Yeah, that's what my sister says too.
Little puzzle pieces.