Puzzles!

Nancy Miller

Description

Following her father’s death due to gun violence, a young girl and her family work through their emotional journey together, through healing conversations.

A young innocent girl suffers the unexpected death of her father, at the hands of a gunman. Her family and community pull together to get through this horrific experience. They share coping strategies. New life and boundless strength come from this tragedy.

Sujets

• Fiction Jeunesse
• Juvenilee Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 26 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665738057
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Puzzles!
The Power of Love Over Pain

NANCY MILLER


Copyright © 2023 Nancy Miller.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
 
Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3806-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3804-0 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3805-7 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023903229
 
 
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 4/24/2023
CONTENTS
1.THE PIECES FIT
2.THE PUZZLING PIECE
3.THE PIECE PUPPETS PLAY
4.PANCAKE PIECES
5.A PIECE GOES MISSING
6.TAKING THE PIECE
7.PUZZLE PICTURES
8.PUZZLE PACKAGES
9.THE HEART OF THE PUZZLE
10.A SHARED PUZZLE
11.A TOUGH PIECE
12.LINKING PIECES
13.SHARING A PIECE
14.REST AND THE MUSICAL PIECE
15.FUNNY PIECES
16.THE PUZZLE SHIFTS
17.PUZZLING PLANS
18.PIECES LOOK BRIGHTER
19.PIECES STRONGLY CONNECTED
20.A PIECE IS RESTED IN PLACE
21.GATHERING BROKEN PIECES
22.LOOKING AT PIECES IN NEW WAYS
23.THE PUZZLE TABLE SHAKES
24.THE POPCORN PIECE
25.SOME PUZZLE PIECES ARE EXPLAINED
26.TOO MANY PIECES
27.MORE PIECES CHANGE
28.AN IMPORTANT PIECE FALLS
29.PRIORITIZING PIECES
30.THE PIECES ARE DEFENDED
31.THE BRIGHTEST PIECE
32.SHIFTING PIECES
33.REMEMBER THE PIECES
34.PIECES DO SOME SHIFTING
35.MORE PEOPLE MORE PIECES
36.THE WRONG PIECE
37.UNPREDICTABLE PIECES
38.CELEBRATING THE PUZZLE
39.THE PUZZLE KEEPS GROWING



PUZZLES!
Dear Reader,
This book is a fictional account of an innocent young girl forced to grow up suddenly, following the senseless murder of her father. The people he saved represent the people whose lives each of us impact and the ongoing admiration that we have for those who have positively changed the course of our lives. The girl with the transplanted heart represents both the gift of organ transplantation and the undying love we carry when a loved one is taken from us. The challenging birth illustrates the difficult struggle to continue with life, following a heart-wrenching death. Through the gift of the playground, a father is telling his daughter that it is OK to smile, even after he is gone.
This book was written to generate conversations and thought about gun violence, which unfortunately has become a pervasive problem in our society. Although this is a work of fiction, the gut-wrenching emotions experienced by the characters are too real for so many people. As part of the healing process, some people use support groups, art, sports, or other outlets. This family members leaned on each other and their community to struggle through their pain. If deep pain has taken hold in your heart, reach out and get whatever support you can. Tap into the strength of others, until you find your own inner strength. Allow yourself to cry and find positive ways to release that bottomless sadness, before it eats away at your soul.
CHAPTER ONE
The Pieces Fit
Each person has a unique life puzzle to build. Some are more challenging than others. The more difficult the pieces, the greater the delight when each one is individually inserted. I used to envy people with predetermined easy designs. Where there is a box with an ordinary picture, and they know how their life puzzle will turn out. When life gives them a difficult piece, they hand it to someone else to determine the solution and blindly make that decision their own. I thought for a while I was one of those people, until the day my life was shaken up. My life went from peacefully predictable, to a cluster of chaotic confusion. I wasn’t sure any pieces would ever fit again, or even if there was any value in adding new pieces.
I guess things were blissfully fine when I was born. I started out with a beautiful picture, full of colorful pieces and endless possibilities. There was sunshine in every corner of my life. My parents gave me Angel for my middle name because I was an angel. I’m Emilia Angel Murphy, but everyone calls me Emmi. My Mexican mother, my Irish father, and I lived in a cute, little, old house that looked like it came from the pages of a fairy tale, on a peaceful, tree-lined street, with a beautiful butterfly garden in the backyard.
We never had tons of money, but each day was flooded with laughter. My father told corny jokes, made up funny songs about common things like pencils, and left sweet notes with silly faces in different places for me at random times, especially when I needed cheering up. My mom came up with the most fun games, and she found ways of making common tasks fun by working to music or making a game out of it. She also created the most fascinating stories on the spot. I think I laughed a lifetime in those first eleven years.
My mother and I both keep pictures of those innocent times before everything erupted, altering the landscape of our lives. We were always smiling, not knowing what was to come. Looking at those pictures used to bring torrents of tears to our eyes, now they’re just heart-warming memories, sometimes sprinkled with sadness. We keep them on flash drives and on a file in the cloud. I used to believe that maybe my father, my angel, could see them. Mom used to wrap herself in his favorite sweater, which she said smelled like him. I couldn’t smell a thing. She also liked humming a weird oldies song that brought her back to their earliest times together.
My parents actually met because of a single shooting star, at least that’s what my father would say. This is my favorite story. I’ve heard it a million times. They met on a Saturday evening at a local observatory, where each month a huge group of amateur astronomers set up their telescopes to share their love of the universe with passersby. My mother had the largest telescope there, and my father stepped up to take a peek. He was looking at the North Star when a shooting star whizzed right by. He reacted with joyful excitement. My mother was able to see it without a telescope, and she was visibly unimpressed.
They looked at each other, and my father boldly declared, “I just saw a shooting star,” immediately closing his eyes to make a wish. He knew it was a magical moment.
My mother was less than enthusiastic. She let out a deep sigh of disapproval and explained that it was just a small piece of a meteor. He should be grateful it wasn’t big enough to hit Earth.
At that moment, my father felt a wave of emotion. His knees started shaking, yet he said nothing. Not knowing what else to do, and with a long line of people waiting, he nervously stepped away from the telescope while still observing my mother. Feeling awkward, he quickly decided to go look through other telescopes so as not to seem weird. Although he did keep glancing in her direction. As soon as he saw her packing up, he approached her saying, “Would you explain shooting stars to me over a cup of coffee?”
My mother, feeling quite tired, replied, “Make it a drink, and you’ve got yourself a deal.” That brought a smile to my father’s face, and he helped her pack up her equipment.
He knew exactly where he wanted to go, a quaint Irish pub overlooking the river. They had a group of musicians playing a variety of instruments. There were additional instruments on the wall behind the bar. Those were for anyone eager to join in, and that is exactly what my father did. After ordering two pints of Guinness, he grabbed an Irish bouzouki mandolin, sat down beside my mother, and started playing and singing along with the other musicians.
Once the pints were empty, he gave back the instrument, and they walked slowly along the river. It was there that she explained the facts about what looked like shooting stars and pointed out several constellations. She admitted jokingly that there was absolutely nothing to the foolishness of wishing upon a moving rock traveling in space.
My father smiled and said, “That is only one opinion. I tend to disagree.”
“But there is no scientific proof!”
“It might not be scientific, but I do have some proof.”
“OK, tell me your proof,” she said with a hint of superiority.
“I wished on that star. I wished you’d go out with me. And here we are!” He was grinning like you do after opening the best present ever.
My mother’s heart melted. She said she fell in love with him at that very moment. She saw what looked like stars sparkling in his eyes. They spent the whole night walking, talking, and laughing. As the sun was starting to rise, he took a tin whistle out of his jacket pocket and played an Irish love song. My mother still carries that whistle with her, even though she’s never learned to play it.
Their love was full of