My fondest memory of my father was when we solved our first jigsaw puzzle together. It painted the scene of the sun setting over the horizon. In remembrance of the first thing that we completed, he hung it up in the family room for everyone to see. As far back as I can remember, my father always had a strong fascination with puzzles. Not a day went by that he wouldn’t knock on my door, eagerly waiting to ask me one of his riddles. 

At first, I humored the old man, seeing that it brought a smile to his face every time I would attempt to answer. However, as I grew into my adolescence, our exchanges devolved into his riddles and my half-witted attempts to give an answer. No more father-son conversations like it should be. He would just divert his gaze or let out a disappointed scowl if I gave him the wrong answer.

Outside of that, we didn’t have much of a relationship. My father would get easily irritated if I were to ask anything from him, grouchily snapping at me to do things on my own. He didn’t like leaving the house either—every time I would invite him out to do something with me, he’d berate me with questions, to the point where I’d lose interest and just leave on my own. 

When college came around, I was offered to go to a school far away from the suburban life I had grown accustomed to. On the day I had to leave, I knocked on my father’s door hoping to get a proper goodbye before I left. Instead, all I got in return was three knocks on the door, and a faint mutter under his breath that I couldn’t comprehend. 

While I was away, I would send him letters and postcards, letting him know that everything was okay. Every day I checked the mail, scanning through different envelopes hoping one was from him. Eventually, I stopped looking altogether, seemingly cutting off that last bit of connection I had with my father.

Then I got the call that he had passed away. 

My heart sank to my stomach—my body tensed up when I scheduled my trip home to attend the service I arranged for him at our home. I was given the usual condolences. Whenever teary-eyed people in their dark attire would tell me about their experiences with my father, I’d fake a quick smile and the occasional chuckle. Deep down I wanted to relate, but the person they described sounded nothing like the man I knew. 

When the service was over, I helped clean up and walked around the house. Nothing seemed to have changed, but it all felt so... empty, so lifeless. Walking over to my room was like walking five years into the past, everything exactly how I left it. 

My eyes, however, fixated on my study table. A poorly wrapped box encased with colored Oslo paper instead of gift wrapping. I gently opened it — afraid to break whatever was inside, only to find a note containing a cipher and numerous puzzle pieces inside. 

You just couldn’t help yourself huh?

Unlike most kids who were taught to do things like riding a bike and getting hurt while doing it, this was the alternative I grew up with: putting pieces of a puzzle together and understanding it. The irony hits me like a joke that flew over my head. I spent the next few hours fitting the pieces together, my mind replaying faint memories of our first puzzle together—only to find a smaller replica of the exact one that he and I had solved when I was younger. 

Cipher in hand, I made my way downstairs. Frantically searching for the framed puzzle hanging in the family room. I study the frame hoping to find some kind of answer. It was only when I flipped it over that I had found what he was hiding. 

Stuffed behind the frame were old medical documents for my father—diagnoses showing acute forms of Alzheimer’s. Some of the papers had words and symbols scribbled on them — jarring lines and jagged edges, but on one document was clean and well-kept, my last letter to him.

...anyway  I hope you’re doing well, I have a lot of things coming up so I might not be able to write as often and work is starting to pile on. 

I love you, dad. 

I look down at the symbols he had written underneath, using the cipher, I quickly decode it—tears roll down my cheek as I set the frame down, tracing his last few words to me over and over.