The Puzzle Lady

September 1, 2026 (journal entry) 

Mom’s become known by her new neighbors as the “Puzzle Lady.” Over the last month, she’s spent many hours in the lobby of her assisted living community working jigsaw puzzles, one after another. One morning last week, I pushed her wheelchair out to the half-completed puzzle of ice cream desserts and candies (not her favorite puzzle picture). For the next 45 minutes, we sat and worked together, finding pieces that sometimes fit, but more often didn’t. It was relaxed and playful, her arthritic fingers handing small pieces she thought I might be able to use. I felt like a young boy, free from the weight of chores, doing something that didn’t matter, yet mattered greatly because of the connection it offered.

Mom is 91 and took a nasty fall the first week of July. Since then, I’ve spent the better part of the past two months settling her into an assisted living community. The transition has been long overdue. Between a good neighbor and me, she was able to live independently in the house I grew up in since fifth grade. Mom has never dealt well with change, and solo caregiving has often left me feeling overwhelmed and uncertain. Thankfully, the staff of Kraft Commons at Hooverwood have been extremely kind, patient, and attentive. As an only child, I no longer feel alone in my caregiving. The bonus of this move is the community she’s found with other old souls who are now her new neighbors. It’s quite inspiring to watch how they look out for one another as they navigate the challenges of life’s final years.

These last several months, I’ve been reading Bette Dickinson’s rich book, The Art of Vinemaking. The author’s insights consistently deepened my reflections on the science, art, and heart that go into cultivating grapevines, offering insight into Jesus’ words, “I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5). I’ve found myself naturally comparing vineyard imagery with caring for Mom. 

I imagined a vineyard shedding light on my “transplanting” Mom from the soil and terroir of her life's past 60 years to a new setting. I saw myself lovingly yet firmly tugging her deep, tenacious taproot free; then shaking hard, stubborn clay from the gnarled network of smaller lateral roots; finally placing her in a new field, surrounded by other vine keepers and old vines. 

I then envisioned cutting away old branches that weighed Mom down, clearing out the thickets of dead wood so this ancient trunk could rest, feeling no pressure to grow or sustain itself alone. 

Mom could be described as an organized hoarder. For instance, Beth sorted through more than 100 coats hung in four separate closets! This task was repeated again and again as I worked my way through a house crammed with meaningful and meaningless possessions. It seems that over the years, it became increasingly overwhelming for her to dispose of what she no longer needed. On top of that, she still did all her own cooking and laundry. She was never one to let help into her home to lighten the load. She lived a life of monotonous daily maintenance. Not so now. Now, she can rest and do what she would like without the pressures that come with simply trying to survive.

My reflections have prompted me to consider an old yet nagging question in a new way. “What fruit might still grow and be shared from an old vine?”

It’s an intriguing shift in perspective as I contemplate the seemingly unanswerable question I first heard Dad repeatedly ask. Now it’s one Mom asks often. And truth be told, I privately hear myself ask as well. “Why am I still here? What’s my purpose?” 

New light’s cast on this perennial question when it’s framed this way. So—What fruit might still grow to be shared from an old vine? 

An interesting thing about gnarled, 100–150-year-old Old World Zinfandel is that Old World styles emphasize rustic, earthy elements and structure, while New World styles focus on high alcohol and lush, jammy fruit. 

The fruit that can be tasted from the gnarled trunks of our elders tends to be rustic and earthy, as well. There’s zero pretense. The need for the buzz of excitement, along with sentimentally thick sweetness, is over. The flavor that comes through is robust and unfiltered, even if contained within paper-thin, veined, fissured skins. When around them, our senses detect something closely linked to the primal smells and sensations found only in the ancient soil of creation. 

The fruit older people offer us may be quite limited in scale. Yet the “wine” fermented from it is dark and complex, carrying an unforgettable nose, an unrepeatable flavor made possible only by their soon passing into the soil to disappear forever.

Both Mom and I know her days are drawing to a close. There seems to be something shared between us, even if we don’t speak of it, unlike anything we’ve experienced together before. Mental memory for her is slipping, but her body still holds the DNA and terroir of her story, as well as part of mine. As I sit with the “Puzzle Lady,” and listen to her voice, and watch her eyes looking back at me—eyes that eerily resemble mine—for just a few moments, we share this old vintage as if it were Holy Communion. And such it is.